


How to Save a Life

by whenyouheldtheknife



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Gen, Humanstuck, M/M, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, all subject to change, future relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 25,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenyouheldtheknife/pseuds/whenyouheldtheknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You couldn't pinpoint when it had happened, or how you had let it happen, but one day you woke up and you realized two important things. One: your best friend was slowly trying to kill himself, and two: you were head over heels in love with that same best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a) pretty much everything in the tags is going to happen later on  
> b) rating and warnings subject to change!  
> c) marina & the diamonds is so great to type fic to :D

You couldn’t pinpoint when it had happened, or how you had let it happen, but one day, you woke up and you realized two important things. One: your best friend was trying to slowly kill himself, and two: you were head over heels in love with that same best friend. 

\--

“Dave! Hey, Dave, wait up!” you called, waving to try and flag down your best friend before he rounded the corner. You usually weren’t able to catch him, but today, he stopped and waited for you. 

Seeing this, you took your morning class materials out of your bag, jammed them into your locker, and took out the stuff you needed for that afternoon, stuffing them into your bag before slamming your locker shut and pushing through the lunchtime crowd to meet up with Dave. Unbelievably, he was still waiting for you. “Sorry,” you apologized, sheepishly grinning up at him. You were usually much quicker in getting to your locker than that, but you had been held up by your teacher, who had apparently decided that the bell did not dismiss class. 

Dave sort of nodded but didn’t say anything, which you didn’t really think was an appropriate response, but you didn’t want to push him to say anything. Dave had been acting really weird lately, not taking notes in class, sometimes not even showing up to class at all. You didn’t know where he went, but he usually came back reeking of cigarettes and too-strong cologne or aftershave; whatever it was, it didn’t do much to cover up the smell of smoke. 

“Are you coming to lunch today?” you asked, glancing back up at him. Dave had been skipping lunch a lot, too; it was even starting to worry your mutual friend Rose, who never worried about Dave. At least, not openly. 

Dave gave a noncommittal shrug and then nodded. “Yeah, I can, if you want me to,” he answered, and through his shades you saw him look at you. 

“I want you to,” you replied firmly, frowning out of concern for this behavior, even though on the inside you kind of wanted to do a small, happy dance. Maybe Dave would come to lunch more often if you told him that you wanted him there more often! The thought of that made the frown melt right off of your face, to be replaced by a small, satisfied smile. 

The two of you walked into the cafeteria together. You patted the side pocket of your messenger bag, making sure that you had remembered to pack your bag lunch, which you had. You and Dave walked all the way across the cafeteria to the table in the far corner, where you, Rose, and your other mutual friend Jade sat currently, though sometimes other kids would come to sit with you guys, too. 

“Hi, John!” Jade exclaimed, greeting you with a wide smile. Her green eyes widened slightly behind her round, wire-framed glasses when she saw that Dave was with you, but despite the surprise, she added, “Long time no see, Dave!” 

Dave nodded at Jade as he took the seat next to her, leaving a space between himself and Rose. You thought that that was probably a wise move on Dave’s part; Rose had a thunderous expression on her face that made you nervous. 

You sat down between the two blondes quickly and made a lot of rustling noises with your lunch bag to try and dissipate the awkward silence that had fallen on the table after Jade’s delayed greeting to Dave. He hadn’t been to lunch in a week, so you knew that this had probably been coming. But somehow, the reunion was a lot more awkward than you had been expecting. 

“Um, how was your morning, Rose?” you asked, turning your head to look at your friend. She still wore the same expression as she had when Dave sat down and you knew that that didn’t bode well; Rose could behave nastily when she was angry. 

“Peppered with the delightful flavor of idiocy. I was hoping for a change in this tiresome taste by now, but it’s clear that that isn’t going to happen,” she replied, cutting a glance at Dave as she viciously stabbed a piece of the sushi she had packed for lunch and popped it neatly into her black-lipsticked mouth. 

Jade laughed nervously. She had never done too well with conflict. “I dunno, Rose, maybe it can make your lunch a little more flavorful!” She smiled tentatively at Rose, whose shoulders relaxed a little from the ruler-straight line she’d been holding them at. Jade looked at Dave and smiled a little more brightly at him. “Aren’t you going to get lunch?” she asked. 

You looked at Dave too, hoping that he would nod his head and get up, or maybe pull out a lunch, but Dave just shook his head. You looked at Jade and saw that the frown you felt on your face was mirrored on hers. Dave always had a big appetite; you remembered that just a month or so ago that he’d eaten his whole lunch and half of yours and still complained that he was hungry. 

“Here, take my apple. I don’t really want it,” you offered, pulling said apple out of your bag and placing it in front of Dave. 

He paused and, in that pause, you felt a small prickle of fear. Dave hadn’t spoken once since he had sat down and, normally, it was impossible to get Dave to shut up. 

“Close enough to apple juice,” Dave said, cracking a half-smile. He picked up the apple and took a big bite from it. For some reason, when he did, the three of you visibly relaxed. 

The rest of lunch passed in much the same fashion as it usually did after that moment, with you and Jade providing the majority of the entertainment. However, when Dave got up to throw away his apple core (and your lunch bag, though you’d had to beg a little for him to do it), Rose turned to you and Jade with a serious expression. “We need to do something about him,” she said, staring down you and Jade in turn. Her greyish-blue eyes seemed to flash purple for a second, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and you were sure that it was just a trick of the light. 

“I know. He seems so… different,” Jade replied, looking glum for someone who was normally rather happy. Both girls looked at you, waiting for you to agree with them. And while you didn’t want to, you couldn’t help but think that they had a point: Dave wasn’t acting the same as he had been a month ago. He;d been distant, uncommunicative, most likely smoking, and because he’d been skipping lunch, you weren’t even sure if he was eating regularly. 

“All right, yeah,” you agreed, just as Dave came back and sat down. 

“’All right, yeah’ what?” he echoed, looking at you. And man, he was really _looking_ ; even though you couldn’t see his eyes well through his shades (a gift that you had given him three years ago; it made you so happy that he was still wearing them), you could see the outline of them well enough to know that he was staring right at you. 

You shrugged and glanced at Jade, who you saw was looking at Rose, who cleared her throat and said, “John was agreeing with me that we’re glad to have you back at our table.” You were both glad and a little afraid that Rose could lie that effortlessly. 

Dave paused and you could almost hear the cogs grinding away in his head. After a moment, he smirked slightly and replied, “Yeah, I missed my daily dose of grimdorks, too. Was gonna go straight into withdrawal mode unless I got my fix of y’all.” 

Jade laughed, relieved more than amused. You grinned, and even Rose had to fight to keep back a smile as she retorted, “And how does being addicted to such a potent drug make you _feel_ , Mr. Strider?” 

“Like I got all the self-control in the world when I’m on it,” Dave drawled, his smirk only widening. 

“You know you’re helpless in my dorky clutches,” you said, grinning up at Dave and waggling your fingers at him. 

He clutched his heart and pretended to swoon, even placing the back of his hand against his forehead. “Catch me, Harley, John’s givin’ me a mighty strong case of the vapors!” he exclaimed, talking in a heavily-accented falsetto. 

You all laughed (well, Rose hid her laugh behind her hand) as Dave straightened up and took a mock bow, the bell ringing to interrupt your fun. Your group left in a tight unit, with Dave actually smiling for what seemed like the first time in a long time. Maybe you guys didn’t need to “do something” about Dave after all. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dave’s self-destructive?” you finally asked, blinking a few times as the idea began to take firm roots in your mind. “Like… on purpose?”  
> In which John is an idiot and gets told off a little for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) john is really fucking slow okay wow  
> 2) kyle = human Karkat and garrett = human Gamzee  
> 3) we're not gonna hear from dave for a while, haha  
> 4) i already have up through about 1/2 of ch. 5 written hehe  
> 5) don't yell at me for making karkat ginger i only did it because i'm a ginger and prone to anger so i'm poking fun at myself okay  
> 6) sorry this is short unu

A week later found you eating your words. After showing up to lunch that one day, Dave hadn’t come back to the table, much to your dismay. You had really been hoping that the fact that you wanted Dave there would be enough to make him come to lunch more often. Or at all, as was the case. You would even take Dave showing up once a week over him not showing up at all. 

In fact, it was exactly one week later when you, Rose, Jade, and another kid you recognized from your honors geometry class (because his hair was as red as a fire engine) were sitting at the table when you decided that you had had enough of this waiting-around-for-Dave-freaking-Strider crap. 

“That’s it, enough of this waiting-around-for-Dave-freaking-Strider crap!” you said, slamming your hand on the table. Jade started at the noise, but Rose just glanced up at you from her knitting. 

“Have you finally decided to speak with Strider about his self-destructive patterns of behavior?” she asked, already back to focusing on whatever the hell it was she was knitting. Some squishy, purple thing. 

You were silent for a minute, thinking that over. “Dave’s self-destructive?” you finally asked, blinking a few times as the idea began to take firm roots in your mind. “Like… on purpose?” 

“Yes on purpose, you dipshit,” the kid from your honors geometry class said, scowling at you. You thought his name was Kevin, or Karl, or Kyle – yeah, Kyle. Now you could place a personality and a name to his face; he usually got in trouble for excessive swearing. 

“What do you even know about Dave?” you asked, frowning right back at this Kyle guy. You could be just as grumpy as him! 

Kyle rolled his eyes in what was so obviously a gesture he’d perfected in front of his mirror at home. “He smokes like a fucking freight train with my best friend Garrett. And they aren’t just smoking cigarettes.” He cocked an eyebrow at you, his mouth now formed into a smug smirk. God, you just wanted to punch the freckles right off of his stupid gingery face! 

“You don’t know anything,” you accused, but your voice wavered as your mind rambled on. The last time you had seen Dave, he hadn’t smelled of cigarettes, but definitely of something burning. And he’d been oddly… you didn’t want to say “happy”, but then, what else would the lazy smile that had been on his face for hours have meant? “Why would he be doing that kind of stupid stuff anyway?” you asked Rose, ignoring Kyle’s barely-muttered curses that you knew were directed at you. 

Rose, her eyes still on her quick-moving needles, shrugged. “John, if I knew, I would have told you so that we could all work together to help Dave. He would be sitting with us right now, were that the case.” 

“And not getting stoned from a homemade vaporizer in the goddamn band room, of all places,” Kyle interrupted, rolling his eyes again. 

You grudgingly looked back at Kyle. “How do you know all of this?” you asked, more of a defeated tone to your voice than anything. You really didn’t like this guy very much, but he seemed to know a lot more than you did. 

The ginger’s blue eyes glinted with triumph at the tone in your voice. “Like I said, shithead’s friends with my friend.” The bell to end lunch rang and Rose and Jade stood, packing up quickly, which left you and Kyle to walk a little more slowly out of the cafeteria. “Since you’re not supposed to know about his bullshitting around, you should ask him how Garrett is the next time he’s stoned like a whore in Babylon.” Kyle snickered and glanced up at you, a wicked smirk curving his mouth. “I’d love to see that douchenozzle’s face if you did.” He made a turn left after that comment, leaving you to walk down the hall alone. 

Was Kyle telling the truth about what Dave was doing? You frowned at the thought, because if he was, and if Rose’s hunches were correct, then Dave was in some kind of trouble with himself. Why else would anyone suddenly take up stupid habits like smoking and getting high, besides being a complete asshole? And you weren’t going to lie to yourself; you knew that Dave could be a downright prick when he wanted to, but you also knew that he was so more than the asshole’s face he wore to school. 

Your feet took you to your locker while your body was on autopilot, and even though you didn’t need anything from it, you found yourself staring into the depths of your open locker. An ache had started throbbing dully in your chest and stomach, a feeling that beat like a dying butterfly against your rib cage. It was hurting you to think of Dave in some sort of inner turmoil or pain and dealing with it by himself through such stupid means. What was he thinking, pulling this kind of crap? It made you so angry – and hurt, too, but you didn’t know why you felt so goddamn hurt, so you mostly felt anger. Anger at Dave, for trying to cause himself harm, and anger at yourself, for not being enough for him. Because clearly, if Dave felt the need to do these crappy things, you were not being a good friend to him. You were failing him by not noticing the path he was headed down, you were failing him by not trying to talk to him, and right now, you were failing him by standing in front of your locker like an imbecile and not doing anything about this. 

Angrily, you slammed your locker shut, feeling the reverberating clang of metal on metal vibrate up your arm and into your shoulder. The bell to change classes rang and you realized that you were already late to your after-lunch class. But that didn’t matter. You knew what you could do now; you knew that you could get Rose and Jade to give you advice on what to do next. 

You had to crack the stoic mask that was your best friend, Dave Strider. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TT: Yes. John’s prankster gambit skyrockets while he attempts to ignore why he decided to make this group chat in the first place.  
> TT: I can only assume that it is about Dave.  
> EB: how do you always know these things?   
> TT: You didn’t include him in the group.  
> TT: Even though he was the one to call you our “friend leader thing” in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) john always turns out to be kind of a little shit when i write him help  
> 2) i'm too cool for proper formatting  
> 3) okay # 2 was a lie someone help  
> 4) in this au bro does still strife with dave, but the jury (aka rose) is out on whether or not this strifing has completely screwed dave over or not  
> 5) i feel like i am awful at writing but i know i'm not but if anyone seems ooc please let me know!

That night, instead of finishing the last few problems of your honors geometry homework, you logged onto Pesterchum and opened a group chat with Rose and Jade. 

-EB created group chat “Friend-Leader-Things” at 20:42- 

EB: hey guys, are you able to talk? 

TT: Yes. I assume you are also dutifully ignoring your homework. 

EB: hehe, you know it! 

GG: hello! sorry i took forever! 

GG: bec needed to be fed :B 

EB: no problem jade 

EB: you should take your dog out behind the woodshed 

GG: :o 

EB: and give him a great big hug! 

EB: hehehehehehehehe 

GG: gosh john you had me ready to freak out!! 

TT: Yes. John’s prankster gambit skyrockets while he attempts to ignore why he decided to make this group chat in the first place. 

TT: I can only assume that it is about Dave. 

EB: how do you always know these things? 

TT: You didn’t include him in the group. 

TT: Even though he was the one to call you our “friend leader thing” in the first place. 

GG: haha john she got you good!! 

EB: yeah yeah okay 

EB: point taken rose :p 

EB: about dave then 

EB: what the hell is going on with him? 

TT: Like I told you earlier today, Dave is engaging in numerous self-destructive activities. You inferred that this means that he wishes to die, which I will admit I am skeptical about, because if he is indeed trying to kill himself, he is doing it in a very slow manner. 

TT: Of course, he may simply be going through a phase, but I have a feeling that this is not the case. 

TT: Vantas seems to back me up on this matter. 

GG: that guy messages me a lot :B 

EB: does he like you or something? 

GG: i cant tell but if he does like me i dont like him! 

GG: he swears all the time and he can be really mean :( 

TT: I believe he tries to show affection through insults. 

TT: But we’re getting off-topic. 

GG: sorry!!! 

TT: It’s not a problem. 

TT: John. What do you think? 

EB: about dave doing this stupid stuff because he wants to die? 

TT: Yes. 

EB: i… 

EB: i think it's selfish! 

EB: doesn't he know we’re here for him to talk to? 

EB: and that we all care about him? 

EB: i feel like i'm being mean typing this but dave’s just being so selfish! 

EB: don't we matter to him at all? 

GG: well john if daves really trying to kill himself maybe he needs more help than judgment?? 

GG: not that youre judging him! 

GG: but well 

GG: it must be something really bad going on if he cant talk to any of us about it :/ 

TT: I have to say that I agree with Jade on this, John. 

EB: maybe you're right 

EB: but i still think he’s being a big douche by not at least trying to talk to one of us. 

GG: … :/ 

GG: um 

GG: well 

GG: before dave got really bad and started doing all of this stuff he did send me a weird chat in the middle of the night 

GG: ill drop the file for you guys to see… 

-GG sent file davesbeingweird.png to group chat “Friend-Leader-Things” at 21:09- 

-TG began pestering GG at 03:08- 

TG: yo harley 

TG: shit its like 

TG: 3 in the morning 

TG: whend that even happen 

TG: fucking time 

TG: i hate it 

TG: its the anti santa 

TG: breaks into your house in the middle of the night 

TG: eats all the fucking food 

TG: knocks over some prized family heirlooms too like 

TG: ‘shit bet that was important i dont care’ 

TG: and it jettisons the fuck up the chimney 

TG: i dont even know what the fuck im doing anymore 

TG: jade seriously wake up 

TG: ill beg 

TG: striders dont beg but man am i considerin it 

TG: im on my knees in this patch of moonlight 

TG: swillin wicked elixirs like its my birthright 

TG: and i sold my fuckin soul for some insight 

TG: bout what to do when the shit hits the fan 

TG: when i wanna splatter the contents of my think pan 

TG: cross this dirty-ass bedroom flo 

TG: cuz i aint got shit to show 

TG: and itd be better if i go 

TG: oh shit i think bros awake 

TG: see you at school Harley 

-TG ceased pestering GG at 03:39- 

-TT has finished reading file- 

-EB has finished reading file- 

EB: um 

TT: May I speak first? 

EG: yeah go ahead rose 

TT: I already knew that Dave suffered from untreated insomnia that may have been brought on by his upbringing, and especially by the fact that his brother makes it a point to keep him on his feet at all times with ridiculous surprise traps. 

TT: I doubt that any of us have been inside Dave’s house for longer than a few minutes at the most, and it is my belief that this is because Dave is not comfortable enough in his own home to stay sitting in it for long. 

TT: Of course, I cannot verify any of what I just said; it is merely a theory I have. I haven’t even met Dave’s older brother/guardian. 

TT: But even with my lack of substantial knowledge, I believe I can safely say that Dave was exhibiting suicidal tendencies and/or thoughts that night, especially as evidence by the reference in his rap to shooting himself in the head. 

GG: and i didnt wake up 

GG: rose i didnt answer him!! 

GG: what if he really had done anything bad?? 

GG: oh my god i am so stupid 

GG: stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!!! 

TT: Jade, breathe. This is not your fault and you are not responsible for Dave’s actions. 

EB: i’m going to talk to him tomorrow. 

TT: John, I’m really not sure that that would be an advisable action. Especially considering that you’re making it while you’re upset. 

EB: i don’t care! 

EB: i’m sorry rose but i really don’t 

EB: i’m going to bed. 

-EB closed group “Friend Leader Things” at 22:02- 

You shut your computer down in a huff, your hands shaking a little with how angry you felt. All Rose was doing was treating Dave like he was some sort of mental patient, and Jade had probably melted into a puddle of guilt in her bed by now, unable to do anything helpful. 

You didn’t even bother to turn off your desk lamp after the computer fully shut down, instead nearly launching yourself at your bed in frustration, pulling the dark blue comforter all the way over your head. 

Trying to block all thoughts of Dave from your head, you took your glasses off and set them on your nightstand, then squeezed your eyes shut so tight that you saw stars behind your eyelids. 

You were going to go home with Dave tomorrow and you were going to confront that stupid selfish douchebag about his behavior. He was being such a jerk and you wanted Dave, your friend, back, damn it! 

The bed started to feel a heck of a lot comfier when you turned over so that you were lying on your stomach instead of curled up on your side like a defensive pill bug, as you had been. You could almost feel sleep starting to settle heavily on you when a new thought appeared. 

You weren’t just pissed off at Dave because he was being selfish. You were pissed off at Dave because, in his time of need, he hadn’t gone to you. He had gone to Jade instead, and that made your chest ache again. You wanted to be the person that Dave went to for everything. 

“Fuck,” you muttered into your pillow before closing your eyes shut tighter and willing yourself to go to sleep. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “John?” your teacher said, and you started, sitting up a little straighter in your seat.  
> “Yes?”  
> “What is a supernova?”  
> “Oh. The, uh, the death of a star?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) holy shit do i have to pee  
> 2) in which i continue building up suspense about dave and promise fucking nothing in return yay!  
> 3) except next chapter is long as hell because it has all the drama i may have subtly promised and then some  
> 4) coughs awkwardly at chapter summary

The next day, Friday, you woke up with a sick feeling in your stomach. You rolled over and stared at the ceiling of your bedroom. It was covered in glow-in-the-dark stars, stars that had long ago lost their yellow glow. You remembered the day you’d put them up; you’d only been about five or so and had needed your dad’s help to reach the ceiling. Now, if you stood on your bed, you could touch the stars you’d hung up so long ago. 

There was a knock on your bedroom door, signaling the arrival of your dad before he turned the doorknob and poked his head in your room. “Up and at ‘em, son,” he greeted you. The aroma of freshly-brewed coffee snuck into your room through the opening of the door. 

You paused a moment, knowing that this was normally where you’d mumble something and get up, but instead you just sat up in your bed, looking at your father. He was a little blurry without your glasses on, but the familiar landmarks that made him your dad were there: black hair that was messy in the back in the mornings just like yours was, a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, and blue eyes – also like yours, but they were darker, aged. “Dad,” you started, and your father walked into your room to stand just inside the now-open doorway. You glanced down at your blanket, your fingers picking at the fabric. “Dad,” you began again, “how do you help someone who doesn’t want to be helped?” 

You looked up from your blanket and saw that your dad was looking at you with a strange steady gaze, a fatherly frown of concern on his face. “Which friend of yours needs help, John?” he asked, seeing straight to the center of your problems the way that he always did. Your dad was good at that. 

“Dave,” you said before you could stop yourself. “He’s so weird and distant all of a sudden! And he didn’t talk to me when he needed someone to talk to, either, he talked to Jade, and while I like Jade and think she’s nice and all, I kinda want to be Dave’s person, I guess…” You trailed off; had you really just said that you wanted to be Dave’s “person”? God, that was embarrassing. It made you sound like you were in love with the stupid blond! But aren’t you? a voice in your head asked, but you didn’t dare answer. 

“John,” your father said, and you cringed a little. “John, it’s okay. Whatever happens, whomever you like, I’ll always be proud of you and support you.” His voice had softened as he spoke and you sniffled a little, then were immediately embarrassed by the noise. What were you, a character in a bad romantic-comedy? 

You felt your father’s hand on your shoulder, firm and reassuring, and you leaned into the touch. “Get ready for school and I’ll drive you in today.” You nodded and your dad left the room, closing the door softly behind him. 

\- - -

Your feelings jam with your dad hadn’t really helped you figure out what you needed to say to Dave, but it had made you feel a lot better about yourself. You weren’t even sure why that small talk had had such a good effect on your mood, but it had, and it gave you the motivation you needed to think about how you were going to confront Dave, and maybe even to form some solid plans. 

“John?” your teacher said, and you started, sitting up a little straighter in your seat. 

“Yes?” 

“What is a supernova?” 

“Oh. The, uh, the death of a star?” 

The teacher nodded and moved on, but his job was done – you certainly weren’t going to let your mind wander in his class again. At least, not again today. 

A folded white paper square landed neatly on your desk and you glanced to your left, seeing Jade looking your way. She had also chosen to take the upper-level astronomy elective, sharing your interest in stars and space. She smiled a little nervously at you and you smiled back, then picked up the note, remembering how you had left in such a huff last night. You unfolded it and read. 

_hi john! i hope youre feeling better! rose felt really bad so shes given you the “lalonde seal of approval” on your plan to talk to dave. but dont tell her i said that!! she doesnt want you to know that she felt bad for some reason. :B but anyway! kyle messages me last night after you left (hes such a weirdo!!!) and said to meet with him after geometry class if you wanted to do something about dave. it sounds a little fishy to me to be honest but i dont feel like its a bad idea so maybe you should at least talk to him! okay thats all i wanted to say!! (oh but ps you dont have to answer this because the teacher is going to be looking your way by the time youre done reading this and i dont want you to get in trouble! okay now thats really all!!!)_

Sure enough, when you glanced up, the teacher was looking at you again. You quickly folded up the note and put it into your bag, wondering how Jade knew that the teacher would be looking at you. Oh well, it was anyone’s guess, really. 

You started absentmindedly taking notes, thinking about what Kyle wanted. Why did he think that he could help you with Dave? Yeah, Dave was friends with Kyle’s best friend, but that didn’t mean anything… right? How could it, unless Kyle wanted you to talk to Dave at school or something? You shook your head unconsciously, disregarding that idea. It would never work if you tried that. For all of his cool kids clothes and attitudes, you knew that Dave was actually shy and closed-off, preferring to be alone than around others. Of course, he had been like that when he first moved here in middle school, and by the time Dave had graduated eighth grade, he hated that part of himself and had completely changed that aspect of himself by the time he entered high school with you. 

Your hand, which had been flying across the page in your diligent note-taking, slowed and stopped as you let that thought sink in. Dave had changed himself because he disliked himself. In the case of going from middle school to high school, it had been a small change and one that had ultimately benefitted him, but that still signaled a problem, didn’t it? You frowned, disappointed in yourself for not having called Dave out on his bullshit earlier. Now there was something else that Dave had found to dislike about himself and he was trying to change it. 

The only question you had now was, what did Dave hate about himself so much that he felt the need to change it? 

\- - -

A few boring classes later led you to honors geometry, which you sat through with some amount of embarrassment, having neglected to do the homework the night before. Now there were only three minutes left in the class, and you were practically bouncing on your seat from impatience. You looked over to where Kyle was sitting and saw that he was packing up his stuff. Why did he think it was a good idea to talk to about how to talk to Dave? He didn’t know Dave, not the way that you did. 

…Did you even know Dave anymore? 

The bell rang and you stood, grabbing your textbook and calculator off of the desk, then looked up to see that Kyle had come over to stand by your desk. “Hey, fuckass,” he greeted you, and it was strange that you just thought of that as a greeting. 

You nodded at him in response, waiting until the two of you were in the hall before starting, “So, listen…” 

“No, you listen to me, Egbert. Your ‘best bro’ is getting too close to my fuck-buddy for my liking,” Kyle interrupted, leaning against the locker next to yours when you stopped to open your locker. 

You almost dropped your textbook on your foot. “Um.” 

“Oh come on, are you really that retarded? Fucking Lalonde knows, I assumed she told you,” Kyle snapped, but his face was almost as red as his hair. “Why the fuck else would I give a shit if he was hanging around someone else? And why the hell would I give a shit where he smoked his pot and when?” Kyle crossed his arms defensively over his chest and looked away from you. 

You took that as your cue to ignore him and put your things in your locker, chewing over this new piece of information. Would Dave fool around with a guy…? No, you decided firmly, feeling a bit of a sinking feeling in your stomach when you thought that. You pushed the sinking feeling away, though, and glanced back at Kyle, who still looked embarrassed. “Uh, you wanna go back on topic?” you asked, and he nodded. You closed your locker and faced Kyle. “I’m going to talk to Dave at the end of the day and go to his house or something so we can talk about – about whatever it is he’s doing.” 

Kyle narrowed his icy blue eyes at you and paused. You felt like he was sizing you up, determining whether or not he’d made a good choice in this sort-of teaming-up with you he had initiated. After a second, he nodded slowly. “And you tell that shithead from me that he needs to back off of Garrett or I’ll kick his douchebag ass.” With that, Kyle turned and almost stomped away, leaving you with the rather laughable mental image of the short ginger trying to best the tall blond. 

You stifled a laugh and turned around, heading for lunch. You had battle plans to discuss with Jade and Rose. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I bet I could even play as Princess Peach and beat you,” you taunted.  
> “Hey man, don’t diss the lady in pink unless you want her umbrella shoved up your skinny white ass.”  
> “Dave, you’re whiter than I am!”  
> “It’s what you got inside that counts and my soul’s as street as they come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) so my headcanon is that dave moved from texas to washington or w/e and everyone lives there okay  
> 2) next chapter's going to be in his pov, by the way  
> 3) this is the longest chapter yet! when i wrote it it was a little over 2,000 words and now it's a little over 3,100 words, haha.  
> 4) please don't kill me for the end unu

The bell to end the school day rang, freeing you from advanced-placement Spanish. You had been packed and ready to go for a few minutes beforehand, because to get to Dave’s locker, you had to fight the traffic in the language wing and get to the music wing. The only reason that Dave’s locker was in the music wing (which happened to be on the far side of the school, removed from everything else) was because he was a percussionist in a lot of the school ensembles. They all rehearsed one after the other in the first half of the day, so any kids who had a music class had to have a locker down there. You always thought it was weird that the school did that, but then again, you didn’t play music for them. 

You slung your messenger bag over your shoulder and were out the door before the majority of the class even reacted. Screw those losers, you had a mission! As you tried to maneuver around the people clogging the hall, you found yourself humming the Mission: Impossible theme. It was too tempting not to! 

You turned the corner off of the language wing, officially entering the music wing, and saw Dave right away. He was standing at his locker, talking to a really tall guy with black hair that seemed to be perpetually stuck in a state of bedhead. You felt a little prickle of jealousy suddenly burgeon into something more as you saw this other guy laughing at something Dave had said. 

“Hey, Dave!” you called, waving when he turned around at your call. His eyebrows raised, almost imperceptibly; he hadn’t been expecting you. Good. You fought back the jealousy that was still pulsing inside you with your heartbeat as you walked up to Dave, feeling the other kid’s eyes on you even though you weren’t looking at him. “We’re going to hang out today!” You grinned your most winning smile up at Dave and saw a tell-tale twitch of his mouth; he’d totally wanted to smile. 

Instead of smiling like you knew he wanted to, though, Dave shrugged and shut his locker. “See you, Garrett,” he said, fist-bumping the kid before turning and looking at you expectantly. 

Oh. Right. “Let’s walk to your house,” you suggested. “Is your bro home?” 

Dave nodded and you wondered why he was suddenly willing to bring you to his house. Like Rose had said on pesterchum last night, none of you had been in Dave’s house for longer than a few minutes, not even you. When the two of you hung out or slept over, it was only ever at your house. Not that you minded that; you liked your house. But you’d never asked Dave why he was so reluctant to have anyone over. 

You and Dave walked out of the building together and into the moderately warm pre-spring air. The sun was shining through the shifting clouds and you were grateful that you’d worn a light jacket to school today; it was perfect for this weather. “So I thought maybe we could chill at your place for a bit today, instead of mine,” you commented as you both approached the busy cross-walk. When you stopped walking, you looked up at Dave, gauging his reaction. You’d never been really bold about hanging out with him, partly because you were laid-back and partly because bros didn’t force their company on each other, but this was a serious case, and for that reason you thought it would be okay to act a little out of character, as long as it didn’t bother Dave too much. 

“Yeah, sounds sweet,” he said after a minute, which you knew meant that he’d at least been thinking it over. “We could order pizza and I could beat the shit outta you in super smash bros.” 

You smiled, more out of relief than anything, when you guys were walking across the street. This sounded more like the Dave you knew. “I bet I could even play as Princess Peach and beat you,” you taunted. 

“Hey man, don’t diss the lady in pink unless you want her umbrella shoved up your skinny white ass.” 

“Dave, you’re whiter than I am!” 

“It’s what you got inside that counts and my soul’s as street as they come.” 

You laughed; God, it’d been too long since you had talked to Dave. You rarely saw him in school anymore and he was never on pesterchum. Or if he was, he never answered your messages. But now here he was, joking around with you like nothing had changed, and you felt a deep-seated happiness flutter to life in your stomach. 

The two of you reached Dave’s house and he opened the door, tossing his bag on the ground and calling out, “Bro!” 

Almost instantly, Dave’s older brother appeared. You jumped a little and Dave snickered at you. Well, who could blame you for jumping? You’d only met Dave’s bro once, and he was an intimidating kind of man, what with being well over six feet in height, not to mention the fact that he had weird pointy sunglasses and seemed to always have a puppet on him. “Hey, Mr. Strider,” you greeted him nervously, offering a smile that you hoped didn’t look as nervous as you were feeling. You toed your shoes off and set your bag down next to them. 

He nodded at you, his expression inscrutable, then turned his head to face Dave. “He doesn’t smoke.” It was a statement, not a question, but Dave nodded anyway. “Good.” Dave’s bro turned his head to look at you next and you (just barely) resisted the urge to fidget under his stoic stare. “I’ll order pizza. You like cheese?” You nodded and then Dave’s brother had vanished, like he hadn’t even been there. You looked at Dave, only to find that he was already looking at you. 

“That’s your official welcome to Strider house,” he said with a half-smirk. Dave walked over to the couch in the living room and turned the TV on. Super Smash Bros. was already on-screen by the time you went over and sat down on the couch. You wondered if time had any meaning in this house and decided that, no, it didn’t, as Dave sat down next to you, have you a controller, and started to play. 

\- - -

“I totally won,” you bragged over your second slice of cheese pizza. 

Dave snorted as he dabbed at the oil on his first slice with a folded-up napkin. “Yeah, if you count fuckin’ eating me with your weird-ass Kirby powers as winning.” 

You hid a snort of laughter into your next bite. With your mouth full and a wide grin on your face, you affirmed, “Yeah, I do.” This was great! Not only were you hanging out normally with Dave, you’d kicked his ass at a video game! Your prankster’s gambit was surely full to bursting by now, especially because you had played with Kirby, whose sole useful power was swallowing his enemies to copy their abilities. 

Suddenly, in your pocket, your PDA buzzed. You set your half-eaten slice of pizza down and wiped your hands off before pulling it out. “Oh! It’s Jade!” you exclaimed, smiling at the device as you looked at the message. 

“Tell her DJ Stridernasty says sup,” Dave said, still dabbing at his pizza. 

Wondering when he was going to just eat the food, you nodded and began to message Jade back. 

-GG began pestering EB at 17:43- 

GG: hi john! hows it going? 

EB: great! 

EB: dave told me to tell you that “dj stridernasty says sup”. 

GG: hes so silly!! : ) 

GG: so what have you guys been up to?? 

EB: we played a video game and i totally kicked dave’s ass at it! 

EB: now we’re eating pizza. 

GG: that sounds like a lot of fun! 

GG: but john……. 

GG: have you talked to dave at all about his behaviors? 

GG: I know youre having fun but its important that you talked with him, too!! :B 

EB: oh. right. 

EB: i feel bad about forgetting… 

EB: i’ll definitely talk to him about it later though. 

GG: yay! 

GG: okay good luck!!! <3 <3 <3 

-GG ceased pestering EB at 18:01- 

Finished messaging with Jade, you looked up and saw that Dave’s plate was gone and he was looking at you. “Did you finish already?” you asked, surprised that Dave had eaten his pizza so quickly after spending forever dabbing at it with his napkin. 

“’Course I did, I was fuckin’ hungry,” Dave answered, and you swore you could hear him rolling his eyes at you behind his sunglasses. It was funny; you’d been friends with Dave since he had moved to the state in sixth grade, but you’d never seen his eyes. The teachers never said anything about Dave wearing his sunglasses inside, either, which you thought was really weird. 

“Hey, wanna get outta the house?” Dave asked, interrupting your thoughts. 

You glanced down at your half-eaten slice of pizza and nodded. You’d already had a full slice before that one, after all. “Sure? Where’re we gonna go?” 

Dave took care of your plate by dumping it in the trash and called down the hall leading off of the kitchen, presumably to his bro, “Goin’ out!” He walked to the door after there was an affirmative grunt as a reply and slipped his shoes back on. You followed suit. “There’s that playground nearby,” he said, and you almost groaned. 

“We’ll get in trouble for being on a kids’ playground on a Friday night, Dave,” you replied, standing up and following Dave outside anyway, walking to the sidewalk while he was closing and locking the door. 

“You plannin’ to vandalize the place?” he asked once he joined you on the sidewalk. 

“Well – no, but –“ 

“Then we won’t get in trouble.” 

And that was that. You knew there was no point in trying to argue; Dave could be more stubborn than a mule if he wanted to be. And you weren’t interested in giving him a reason to do that. Besides, it wasn’t like there was anywhere else to go on a Friday night that you could both walk to. 

The playground wasn’t far from Dave’s house; he lived relatively close to the cluster of schools that made up your district. When you got there, the two of you sat down on a hard plastic bench, looking out onto the empty playground equipment. 

After a moment of silence, Dave turned to look at you and he asked, “D’ya mind if I light up?” 

You turned your head so sharply to glare at Dave that you thought you were going to get whiplash. You glanced down at his hand and saw that he was holding a lighter and a pack of cigarettes and was fiddling with them. Unbelievable! You felt yourself getting angry, and even though you didn’t want to be mad at Dave, he wasn’t really making it easy to not be mad. “Yes, I mind,” you said, maybe a little more coldly than you intended. But damn it, this was just too much from him! “Why do you even smoke, Dave? Don’t you know how bad it is for you? You could _die_ from it.” 

Dave didn’t look at you when he put the pack back into the big front pocket of his red hoodie. And he didn’t look at you when he said, “No reason.” 

This was going to go nowhere if that was how Dave planned on answering your questions. “But why? No one just wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I want to get addicted to nicotine and die an early death!’” You frowned, realizing a little too late that maybe Dave  had decided to do just that. 

“Maybe I did, Egebrt, what the hell is it to you?” The only reason you could tell that that was supposed to be a question was because Dave had phrased it like one. Other than that, you wouldn’t have had a clue; Dave’s voice sounded so emotionless. 

And you wanted to piss him off. “Yes, my name is Dave Strider and I smoke to die,” you said, mimicking Dave’s voice and magnifying his faint Southern twang so he sounded like a country music singer. 

Dave stood up and in front of you, staring you down. “Cut it out,” he warned. 

But you were too angry, too hurt, to stop now. You stood as well, chest-to-chest with Dave. “My name’s Dave-freaking-Strider and I’m a selfish douchebag!” you shouted, right into his face, not caring how childish you were being by mimicking his voice like that. 

Dave’s face flushed bright red even though his facial muscles didn’t move at all, and you barely had time to duck before his fist swung at your head. “C’mere, you asshole, we’re goin’ back home and I’m gonna show you somethin’,” he all but snarled, his accent extremely prominent now. You’d only seen Dave act like this once before, when someone had shoved you in eighth grade, and he had been so mad then that it was frightening. Now, with that anger directed at you, you realized you were in trouble with him for what you’d said. 

You tried to get around Dave, but he grabbed your arms and literally hoisted you off of the ground, throwing you over his shoulder like you were a sack of potatoes. “Hey! Put me down!” you shouted, thumping your fists against Dave’s back when he started walking at a rather fast pace off of the playground. “I take it back!” 

“No take-backs,” Dave grunted, his grip around your legs tightening almost painfully in response to your wiggling around. “Jesus, John, you weigh as much as a fucking bird.” 

You gave up struggling then and went limp, partly because you thought that Dave might just let you fall, but mostly because Dave had gone back to calling you by your first name. Dave called you by your first name more than he did for anyone else, so when he called you by your last name, he was either messing with you or pissed at you, and the latter rarely happened. 

Thankfully, you reached Dave’s house quickly due to his fast pace. With his free hand, Dave unlocked the door and then he pushed his shoulder into it, opening it, and he closed the door behind him sharply with a swift kick. He continued carrying you all the way into his house, through the living room, the kitchen, and down the hall where you guessed the bedrooms were, finally stopping in front of the door at the end of the hall. He set you down and you looked up at Dave expectantly, your arms crossed over your chest as you tried to read his expression. 

“Actually, let’s just go back to playing video games, you can be Kirby again and kick my pasty princess ass to the curb and back,” Dave said after a moment, rushing through the words without looking at you. 

You shook your head, a grin twisting your lips. “Nope, you carried me all the way home from the park. You expect me to just say okay to that?” you asked, arching an eyebrow at Dave. 

“I was hopin' you would,” he replied, fidgeting a little. That struck you as odd; Dave wasn’t the type to fidget. He reached out and turned the knob, opening his door and walking past you into his bedroom. 

It was a relatively normal bedroom, in your opinion. Your eyes scanned the room – the most prominent feature of it was the bed, which was huge and messy, the red comforter tangled with about five pillows. It took up most of the room. The floor space that wasn’t covered with clothes, papers, and books was taken up by a dresser and two desks. The desks interested you; one was covered in school materials and empty soda cans, whereas the other was pristine, with a computer, an expensive-looking camera, and a gleaming set of turntables the only things on it. You looked up above the second desk and saw a shelf above it. There were jars on the shelf, jars that were filled with liquids and strange floating objects that made your insides squirm a little. “What’re those?” you asked, pointing up at the shelf and turning your head to look for Dave. 

Dave was sitting on his bed, having closed the door behind you when you’d walked in. He shrugged. “Just some things I collected. A frog, a crow, a lotta fish, and a liver. Don’t ask what of, I dunno.” 

You paused, eyeing the jars warily. “Why do you keep dead things in jars in your room…?” That concerned you. In your mind, the Dave you knew was only interested in music, photography, and other weird things, like rapping and being ironic. Nothing this weird. Dave wasn’t supposed to be interested in smoking cigarettes, getting high, and death, of all things! 

Dave shrugged again and started tapping his feet on the floor, beating out a rhythm that sounded nervous to even your ears. “Did ya want to see what I had to show you or not? Video game offer still stands.” 

You turned your whole body to face Dave now, your curiosity begging you to nod and say yes, while the rational part of you really wanted to just play video games and maybe eat some more pizza. “Yeah, you have to prove me wrong about you being a selfish douche, right?” You laughed a little, the insult only half a joke. 

Dave stood up and you crossed your arms over your chest, not sure if he was going to try to hit you again, but Dave’s fingers were curled around the hem of his hooded sweater. He paused, then said, seriously, “You can’t get Bro once I show you.” You nodded, keeping silent, not sure what he meant by that, but wanting him to just go on and get it over with. There was no way he could convince you to change your mind; not even Rose and Jade could do it, no matter how hard they tried to. 

Dave’s red hoodie came off and he tossed that on the floor. He was still wearing a shirt on underneath it, and you wondered why that was long-sleeved. It hadn’t really been cold recently; why did Dave need so many layers? You also noted briefly that Dave looked a lot skinnier than you remembered him; the shirt was baggy on him. 

“Seriously, John. You can’t even tell anyone.” 

You frowned, but nodded again anyway, slower this time. What was the big deal, anyway? You watched as Dave pulled off the long-sleeved shirt, trying not to watch the way the lean muscles in his arms and chest moved. You were not a homosexual, damn it. 

Then Dave’s shirt was off, and – 

“Holy shit, Dave!” 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TG: maybe instead of answering ill drop to one knee and propose  
> TG: hell be so overwhelmed with joy he wont ever ask again  
> TG: well get married and live in a suburban house with a white picket fence and a golden retriever and 2.5 kids and well have nine to five jobs and eat homemade meals for dinner every night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) help dave is a softie on the inside how do i fix him  
> 2) welcome to the wonderful world of pov-changing   
> 3) the descriptions in the beginning got a little bit away from me  
> 4) ps john is always honest when he's sleepy  
> 4a) okay he's honest pretty much all the time anyway even though he's a little shit  
> 5) please choke on the fluff

Your name is now Dave Strider. And you just showed your best friend your scars. 

Literally. 

“Holy shit, Dave!” John exclaimed once you pulled off your undershirt. You figured that he was probably right in being so shocked – not only were there a shit ton of scars all over your damn upper body, they made you ugly. Uglier, the voice in your head corrected, and you told it to shut the fuck up, because your eyes were trained on John, who had started walking towards you. “Can I…?” he asked, and you nodded, knowing what he meant without having to ask. 

John reached out and touched your bare chest, his slim fingers resting on your most prominent – and most recent – scar. It was an ugly, bumpy purple line going straight down the middle of your chest that you had made only a few weeks ago in a fit of anger at yourself. You resisted the urge to coil away from John’s touch as his fingers left that particular scar and began to actively seek out the presence of others. 

There were words carved into your pale skin that he touched and frowned at, curses of self-hatred running every which way; angry lines of hues varying from pink to red to faint, silvery-white ran through it all, crossing paths more than once on their journey around your torso. 

And while those were ugly and terrifying, you knew that your arms were the worst. You had started there, as most cutters were wont to do, but you’d run out of space as your self-hatred grew and you found more reasons to slice your skin open. It had taken an accident that had involved you telling one of your friends what was going on because you had lost so much blood to make you realize that you had more skin than just that on your arms. But as punishment for the fact that you couldn’t think of where the fuck else to cut, your arms were marred with deep purple scars that wound from your elbows up to your shoulders, that were furious and vertical on the insides of your arms; they were reminders you had to live with forever. 

John’s hands were running all over your goddamn torso and now they were on your arms. You were holding your breath, trying to distract yourself from the fact that you couldn’t remember the last time you’d been touched by someone and from the fact that his hands were so fucking warm you couldn’t stand it and from the most important fact that it was getting harder and harder to remain calm the longer he touched you. 

You tried to think about when you had started doing this and found that you couldn’t give it a date, or even a month; you thought of the time passing in long years. It had been almost two years, and you knew that it had started when you realized that you were – 

“Dave,” John said softly, and you snapped out of your thoughts, your mind instantly focusing on how close John was and how his hands were still on your body and on how he was looking up at you like he cared. Fuck him, fuck the hand on your side and the hand over your heart where you’d tried to cut deepest, fuck the blue of John’s eyes and fuck you, especially, for noticing these shitty things. “Dave, I – I’m really sorry.” 

You blinked a few times, trying to think past the John-induced haze in your brain. ”What.” Why was he sorry? It wasn’t like this was his fault or anything. 

“I didn’t know that you were – you know, like this,” John replied, a frown tugging his lips downward. Absentmindedly, or so it seemed to you, his thumb gently stroked the skin of one of the scars on your arm. 

“Yeah, well.” You backed away slightly and felt a twinge of disappointment when John let his hands slide off of your skin. You sat back down on your bed, reaching around for your shirt and pulling it back on quickly, almost knocking your glasses askew in the process; it was only just now occurring to you that John had essentially just felt you up. “So, after your taste of pure Strider skin, you wanna stay the night?” you asked, smirking a little at the faint blush that appeared on John’s face. 

John, to his credit, got rid of the redness quickly and nodded, breaking out into his stupid, dorky grin while you tried not to notice how it lit up his whole goddamn face. “Sure, but the Egbert bod is off-limits.” He paused, laughing a little, but then the happy look fell from his face. “Oh, but… I don’t have pajamas or anything like that.” 

You rolled your eyes and got up from your bed. Walking over to your dresser, you opened the top drawer and pulled out a pair of blue plaid pajama pants. Tossing them at John, you said, “That’s why we got extras.” 

John caught the pants and brightened immediately. God, it’s like looking into the fucking sun, you thought. 

“Thanks, Dave!” he exclaimed, and believe it or not, he began fucking stripping right there. 

You stood up after a minute, looking down and changing as well, grateful that there were no scars on your legs, because from the corner of your eyes you could see John looking at them. “You’re such a fucking dork,” you told him, straightening up after your pajama pants were on. Flannel was the comfiest shit, swear to god. 

“Yeah, but I’m your fucking dork.” John grinned and waggled his eyebrows at you. 

You rolled your eyes again behind your shades and ignored the sudden fluttering feeling in your stomach. You hadn’t even eaten recently; what was up with that feeling? “Damn straight you are.” 

\- - -

It was nearing two in the morning. You were wide awake and John was curled up on the couch, his breathing deep and almost soothing. He’d fallen asleep before the end of Groundhog Day, a cheesy movie he’d wanted to watch. You wished that you could sleep, but you rarely slept, if you even slept at all. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to sleep, because you wanted to sleep so damn much that it nearly drove you to madness. But most of the time, you just couldn’t sleep; there was a restless, almost manic energy that lit you up from the very marrow of your bones. Of course, the fact that you hadn’t eaten in a little over twenty-four hours probably had something to do with tonight’s restlessness. 

Not wanting to wake John, you didn’t get up from the couch to seek entertainment, instead pulling out your phone, logging onto Pesterchum to see who was online. You quirked an eyebrow at your screen when you saw that Rose was online. 

**-TG began pestering TT at 01:53-**

TG: sup lalonde 

TT: Look now, children, the ever-elusive Dave Strider has emerged from the brush. Let us watch as he fumbles around for excuses to pardon his long absences from the presence of the people who would like to see him the most. But hush now, if the Strider thinks you are mocking him, he will grow defensive and start rapping about you as a defensive mechanism. 

TT: It’s a rather shitty defensive mechanism. 

TG: i told john what more do you fucking want 

TG: well 

TG: i showed him i guess 

TT: What did you show John? 

TG: you know 

TG: the scars 

TT: Oh? How did that go? 

TG: good 

TG: i think 

TG: i mean hes asleep on my couh right now 

TG: so id say it went fucking dandy 

TG: dandier than a lion in a top hat doing the jig in the middle ring 

TG: attention attention the ringmaster calls 

TG: here we have the lifes so fucking dandy exhibit 

TG: ooh and aah and throw some goddamn peanuts at this majestic creature 

TT: Have you come to terms with the fact that you love John? 

TG: dude 

TG: dont interrupt my metaphors 

TG: and of course i love john hes my bro 

TT: Dave. 

TT: You know what I mean. 

TT: Do not make me get specific. 

TG: ok ok jesus fuckin christ dont write fanfiction about us thats creepy 

TG: look im not gonna say shit to him and we both know it 

TG: hes my bro and bros dont kiss bros 

TG: not on purpose anyway 

TG: so thats that 

TT: Doesn’t it bother you that John will never know how you feel about him? 

TG: no 

TT: Moving past your bald-faced lie and onto a different topic, let’s talk about the problem with the scars. 

TT: While I am glad that I do not have to keep your secret anymore, what are you going to say when John asks you why you did that to yourself? 

TT: Because he will definitely ask, either of his own accord, or because I will suggest that he should do it. 

TG: i dont fucking know 

TG: maybe instead of answering ill drop to one knee and propose 

TG: hell be so overwhelmed with joy he wont ever ask again 

TG: well get married and live in a suburban house with a white picket fence and a golden retriever and 2.5 kids and well have nine to five jobs and eat homemade meals for dinner every night 

“Dave?” you heard, and that was John’s voice, muddled with sleep. 

TT: What a charming picture. Do you also have a pet unicorn in this fantasy? 

TT: Strider, it would be in your best interest for you to be honest with John. If you truly care for him so much, don’t you think that he deserves to know the truth? 

**-TG is offline!-**

TT: Damn it. 

“Hey,” you said, slipping your phone back into your pocket when John sat up. He still had his glasses on and there was an imprint in the side of his face where the frames had been pressed into his skin. “Wanna go to bed?” 

John nodded and you stood, helping him up from the couch and to your bedroom. You figured that the bed was big enough for the both of you to share; you had shared John’s bed with him before and that was less than half the size of your bed. “C’mon, don’t turn into dead weight, you lazy ass,” you muttered as you half-hauled John onto the bed. 

To your surprise, his fingers closed around the hem of your shirt and John tugged you down onto the bed, hard. You fell onto the bed without making a sound, but you landed more on John than on the actual bed. “Can’t sleep ‘less you do,” he said, his words slurred but his blue eyes open and fixated on you. “D’you sleep with your silly glasses on?” 

You nodded slowly; you didn’t take them off at John’s house. Your heart was beating a little too quickly in your chest. Your legs were tangled with John’s and your air was mingling with his. “Wear ‘em all the time,” you murmured. 

John reached up and touched the frames of the very same sunglasses that he’d given to you three and a half years ago. Slowly and deliberately, he slid them down your nose. You fought the urge to shut your eyes, wanting to see the look on John’s face. 

“Huh,” he said, the word more of an exhale than anything. John’s face was scrunched up in thought for what felt like a long moment before he started smiling, letting his big grin grow soft on his face. “You have pretty eyes,” John said, making eye contact with you, his hand resting on the side of your face, his eyes slipping shut. He fell asleep, just like that. 

You let a smile burst to life on your face when John couldn’t see it, not really believing that John was honest about that, but appreciating the hell out of such an answer anyway. You took John’s glasses off of his face and set them aside along with yours. And then, for the first time in weeks, when you closed your eyes, you fell asleep right away. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” Dave said, interrupting you at such a point where, if you were reading this exchange instead of living it, you as the reader would have most likely felt increasingly frustrated at such an important thought being cut off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) sorry for lateness on updating; i was at a con from friday to sunday and slept a lot today. ^^;  
> 2) are we all aboard the rapidly-shifting pov express? 'cause we should be. it keeps happening.  
> 3) everyone is a big bag of dicks and i relish it.  
> 4) i feel like my writing and everything i do is absolute shit right now and i'm sorry if this is shitty in any way.

Your name is now Dirk Strider, and you’ve just spent the last few minutes staring at your brother and his friend cuddling in the same damn bed. You didn’t have a problem with this, because whatever Dave did was Dave’s decision, but you were thrown for a loop by the sight. Dave was asleep. When was the last time the kid had slept? 

Dave’s friend (John, that was his name) had his face burrowed into Dave’s chest, his arms wrapped around Dave’s body. Dave, meanwhile, had his legs and arms wrapped almost fully around John, his head resting on John’s. You noted, with a small amount of surprise, that Dave’s glasses were off. Had he made the decision to take them off after John fell asleep, or before? Either choice would surprise you, because you knew that Dave was almost hilariously self-conscious about his eyes. 

You were about to turn and leave when you noticed something that struck you as odd: Dave’s shirt was riding up his chest and on his skin was a silvery-reddish sort of pattern that looked like a tattoo that needed to be touched up. Your curiosity aroused – though no one would know that by looking at you, what with your face a perfect mask – you took a step forward. 

Dave stirred slightly and you paused. Was he waking up? You knew how pissed off Dave would be if he knew that you had come in his room with knocking; there was an unwritten law in the Strider household that one didn’t just go into someone’s bedroom without explicit permission. 

Silently, you backed out of Dave’s room and closed the door as quietly as you could behind you before going to the kitchen to make breakfast. 

\- - -

Stretching slightly and waking with a yawn, you smiled, because you’re John and you’re currently the warmest you’d ever been in the morning. Why was it so warm in your bed – wait. You spent the night at Dave’s house. Your eyes flew open and even though it was blurry you realized that it didn’t matter: all you saw around you was red fabric. Oh my God, you thought, pulling your head back a little bit. You’d fallen asleep cuddling Dave. Then you remembered the other part of last night that wasn’t that cheesy movie you’d made Dave watch: you’d seen Dave’s eyes for the first time. They were as red as the shirt he was wearing, red like the color you bet your face was right now. You didn’t want to think about Dave’s eyes, not while your body was still pressed up against his, but they had made him look… different. They’d made him look – 

“Mornin’, sleeping beauty,” Dave said, interrupting you at such a point where, if you were reading this exchange instead of living it, you as the reader would have most likely felt increasingly frustrated at such an important thought being cut off. 

You shifted in Dave’s arms, looking up at him. His sunglasses were back on his face and he was holding your glasses in front of you. “Morning,” you replied, taking your glasses from Dave and putting them on. “Did you sleep okay?” You smiled, hoping that Dave had actually slept. 

He nodded, already wearing his stoic Strider mask, though, because he didn’t smile back at you. “Like a drunk hobo,” he affirmed, and your smile widened to a grin at the comparison. 

“I dunno, Dave, you weren’t snoring.” 

“You did enough of that for the both of us.” 

“Did not!” 

“They were princess snores.” Dave made soft, snuffling snoring noises at you that, to be honest, did sound like a kind of snoring noise you would make. 

Defeated, you sighed. “Yeah, Dave, I’m a princess. Can we get breakfast now?” You could smell the aromas of toast, eggs, and bacon from the kitchen all the way in Dave’s room and it was making you hungrier than… than a guy who’d been working all day. Yeah. 

You should probably leave the metaphors to Dave. 

\- - -

Over breakfast (which Dave’s brother had made for the both of you; it was surprising to find that out because Dave couldn’t cook to save his life and you had kind of assumed that his brother would be the same way) you checked your PDA, finding a few messages from Rose that looked like they had been sent a few hours earlier. 

**-TT began pestering EB at 09:37-**

TT: Good morning, John. I know that you aren’t awake right now, but I also know that you will check your messages first thing when you wake up, because your mobile device is a part of your arm. 

TT: Dave messaged me last night shortly before going to bed with you. He seems much better than before. I wanted to congratulate you on whatever progress it was that you made. I was doubtful that you would even make headway. 

TT: But keep in mind that just because you had one good night does not mean that Dave is “cured”. The things that he is going through are not things that disappear. They are things that require long therapy session to reach a state where recovery is even a thought. 

TT: If Dave showed you or told you anything that you found alarming, then I urge you to tell his brother about it. His brother is his only guardian and it is important that he is kept informed of what goes on with Dave. 

TT: That’s all I will say for now. I wish you a pleasant morning, John. 

**-TT ceased pestering EB at 09:50-**

You read the messages over again, feeling a sinking sensation in your stomach. The scrambled eggs and toast that you had been eating while reading Rose’s messages felt heavy in your stomach now. Did Rose know more than she let on? 

You set your forkful of eggs down and looked at Dave. He was pushing a piece of toast around his plate, not eating anything. You were wondering if you should ask him about it – had you even seen Dave eat last night? – when the sight of Dave’s brother standing behind him caught your eyes. The man was still in the kitchen, almost hovering between Dave sitting at the island and the stove. You would say that he looked nervous, but it was hard to tell if that was the case or not. 

“It ain’t a pet, so quit playing with your toast and eat it,” his brother said suddenly, choosing to stand directly behind Dave now. 

Dave, to his credit, didn’t even flinch at the sudden intrusion. “It’s cold,” was all he said, and even you knew that that was a shit reason. 

Wordlessly, Dave’s brother went to the stove, picked up the pan with the eggs still in it, ruined back around, and fairly piled them onto Dave’s plate. You watched Dave’s face the whole time and saw him make a disgusted face, grimacing at the steaming pile of food. “I’m going to get dressed,” Dave announced, standing abruptly. The back fo his chair was shoved roughly into his brother’s stomach when he stood, but you could tell that Dave didn’t care as help walking down the hall and into his room, leaving you at the island with his brother. 

“I’ll, uh.” You made as if to get up, but Dave’s brother motioned at you to sit. You sat back down, slowly, feeling apprehensive. What did he want with you? You thought back to Rose’s messages and wondered if now was the time to say something, now that Dave wasn’t around. Your insides clenched with anxiety at the thought though, and you couldn’t have pried your mouth open if you’d tried it with a crowbar. 

Dave’s brother sat down in the chair that Dave himself had just vacated, staring at you. You tried not to squirm under his gaze, but you failed and began nervously fidgeting on the chair. 

Finally, the man said, “You gotta spill, kid. What’s eating at him?” 

You bit your lip to keep your mouth from flying open and looked down at the formica tabletop, then back up at Dave’s brother. You knew that he was pretty young to be taking care of Dave, in his twenties still, but right now he looked older than that, almost like your dad. How could you not tell him what you know? He deserved to know that Dave wasn’t doing okay. You took a deep breath through your nose, then let it fly. “Dave’s, um, well you know he’s smoking and all. But he’s got – he’s got scars. All over his arms and his chest and his stomach and they look kind of bad. Some of them don’t really look that old, either…” You paused, leaning forward slightly to look at Dave’s brother curiously. Was he even breathing? “Uh. Mr. Strider?” you asked tentatively. 

To your immense relief, the man let out a breath that he’d apparently been holding since you started talking. “Thank for tellin’ me,” he said, and his voice sounded like glass scraping across gravel. “Can you walk home from here or d’ya need a ride?” 

“I can walk,” you answered automatically, even though it would take you about half an hour to do that. You glanced out the window and, on seeing that it was sunny, decided that you could do it. “Yeah, I’ll walk. Thanks for having me over, Mr. Strider. Tell Dave to get on pesterchum later!” Suddenly, you couldn’t get out of there fast enough. You didn’t know if you’d done Dave good or bad by talking to his brother, and you knew that you really didn’t want to stick around for whatever was going to happen next. 

You pulled on your shoes haphazardly by the door and nearly forgot your messenger bag in your scramble to pull on your jacket and just get out the door. Dave’s brother was still sitting at the island, completely still and unresponsive to what you had just said. You opened the door and your feet hit pavement as it closed behind you, letting you breathe. 

You really hoped that you’d done the right thing. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were so many things about you that needed to be fixed, the kind of fixed that could only happen once you opened your skin and let your own blood play across your hands. Jesus, what a stupid question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) in which someone else gets a long pov thing  
> 2) and guess what they're aLSO A BIG BAG OF DICKS HOW UNEXPECTED  
> 3) ps i'm not gonna make it a big deal when the pov changes anymore mwahahaha  
> 4) happy easter <3

You just heard John thank your Bro for having him over, followed by the sound of the front door opening and then closing shut with a click that sounded all too final. You were lying on you bed when you heard these things, trying to find the spot where John had been sleeping. So far, you’d only succeeded in making a mess of your bed. 

It wasn’t your fault that you wanted to have some sort of physical memory of the night. Sure, all you and John had done was hung out and slept, but you and him had fucking cuddled, okay. The last time you had been so touchy-feely with anyone was… Huh. Actually, you couldn’t really remember when the last time was. Oh, well, it was probably also with John. He was the only one you would consider allowing to touch you for more than just the perfunctory hug or bro-fist. 

Well. Okay, if you didn’t count the times when you hung out with Garrett and got higher than the fucking stratosphere and leaned all over him because you didn’t think the ground was really beneath your feet and he just laughed and let you. 

Thinking about hanging out with Garrett and getting stoned out of your mind was making you really want to get, you know, stoned out of your mind. Damn. You sat up, wondering if maybe you had a gram or so left over in the dime bag you bought from Garrett a week ago. 

Pushing yourself up from your bed, you stood up and walked over to the desk where you kept all of your electronics and opened the drawer, revealing the mess within. You leaned over and peered into the drawer, wary about pawing through it, namely because you kept your blades in here. You didn’t see any on top, though, so you did the stupid thing and stuck your hand in – and immediately regretted that decision. “Ow, shit!” you hissed through your clenched teeth, holding up your hand to inspect it. There was a gash in your palm that was already dripping blood and fuckshitcuntmotherfuckingwhore it stung. 

You felt a sudden and strong urge to pull the blade from your drawer and do it again. 

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up, your Strider senses tingling to alert you of impending strife. You turned around quickly and saw that your Bro was standing in your open doorway, his arms hanging loose and weapon-free at his sides. “Sup,” you greeted him, remaining calm despite the fact that your brother’s unannounced and weaponless presence could only mean some shit was about to go down. 

In an instant, he was standing in front of you, towering over you. He held his palm out to you and you looked down, seeing a band-aid there. You wondered how long he had been in the doorway without you noticing when you took the band-aid and stuck it onto your cut, knowing that it would need to be replaced soon if it kept bleeding. 

When you looked back up at Bro, he said, as stoic as ever, “Strip.” 

You smirked, trying to hide your uneasiness. “Dinner first,” you joked, but you weren’t smirking anymore. Bro didn’t say anything, but you knew this tactic; he was keeping silent in the hope that you would dig yourself into a hole or some shit like that. Well, you weren’t going to give anything away. You crossed your arms over your chest, ignoring the slight throbbing sensation in your palm when you did so, and stared right back at Bro, as if daring him to so much as open his mouth. 

After about three minutes of that nonsense, Bro finally spoke again. “Strip yourself, or I’ll do it for you.” His voice had gotten slow, quiet, smooth – all of which, to you, were major warning signs that Bro wasn’t having any of your shit today. Unlike most people you knew, Bro didn’t get loud when he was angry; he got quiet and that scared the shit out of you. 

You stared at him for about thirty more seconds and decided it wasn’t worth it because John had probably told him everything. Feeling irrationally angry all of a sudden, you blew out an irritated breath and grabbed the hem of your shirt, lifting it up and over your head. 

You heard, rather than saw, Bro inhale sharply, but you saw when he took his glasses off, sliding them down the bridge of his nose to better examine you. You watched with a sense of expert detachment from the situation as his deep orange irises traveled over the scars on your body. You watched the path his eyes took, imagining that you could see the trail of scars reflected in them. His lips moved slowly as he mouthed the words you’d carved into yourself: 

Fuck up. 

Douche. 

Shithead. 

You felt the detached side of yourself crumble and you couldn’t look at Bro’s eyes anymore, too sure that you would see shame there and if there was, you couldn’t fucking stand to see it. 

“Can I put my shirt back on?” you asked, all kinds of uncomfortable with the extended silence coming from your Bro, especially in this situation. 

He nodded, seemingly unable to look away from your scars. You bent down, picked your shirt up, and quickly shimmied it back on, not even disturbing your shades as you did so. Bro was looking right at you now and you felt a wave of sullenness wash over you. Unable to help yourself, you snapped, “That all? You wanna check under my bed for a gun? Or my drawers for pills?” When there was silence, you added, your voice raised, “You don’t even fuckin’ care so you should just turn yourself around like the gay-ass ballerina you are and waltz right the fuck outta my room, Bro.” You practically spat that, unable to stop your shoulders from shaking slightly with the force of what you were saying. 

Your brother frowned and made a minute shift that meant he’d switched his weight onto his more dominant side; you copied the move and waited for a hit to come, but there wasn’t one. Instead, Bro asked you only one thing, one word: “Why?” 

You felt your insides tighten and squirm around like a bunch of blind worms. How were you supposed to answer that? There were so many things about you that needed to be fixed, the kind of fixed that could only happen once you opened your own skin and let your own blood play across your hands. Jesus, what a stupid question. “Dunno,” you mumbled, but you knew that Bro knew that that wasn’t the truth. 

He stared at you for a while longer after you said that and you wondered what kind of game he was trying to play now, because you didn’t know the rules anymore. John had betrayed you like Judas to Jesus and you didn’t want to believe it, but Bro wouldn’t have known otherwise. You were careful to hide your bandages and cuts and scars and it had started that way because you’d been ashamed of the fact that you’d done it. But now, now you couldn’t care less; you only continued hiding your shit out of habit. You were extra fucked-up with a side of crazy-as-balls sauce because now you didn’t feel ashamed. 

“Clean out your drawers,” Bro said, and you bristled at the command. 

“Get the fuck out of my room,” you halfway hissed at him, anger making you ball your hands into fists. Like hell you would ever do that; you’d rather die. 

Actually, you would rather just die in general. 

You’d expected Bro to rise to your words and take them as a challenge, but all he said was, “Watch your goddamned language,” before turning and leaving your bedroom, closing the door the same way that John had closed your front door: with a click that sounded all too final. 

\- - -

You sat yourself down on one of the chairs in the kitchen and stared at your hands, willing them to stop fucking shaking. Your brother, the kid you’ve been trying to raise for almost five years now, just showed you the damage he’d done to his body via making love with a goddamned razor blade. It was the single most horrifying thing you’d ever seen in your life and you had seen – not to mention taken part in – some really fucked up shit. 

You leaned back in the chair and tried to catch your breath. If you couldn’t calm down, you were going to lose your cool, and if there was one thing you never did, it was lose your cool. 

…But goddamn, the kid had some problems. You shook your head and stood, restless. Moving was supposed to help Dave, you thought as you began to pace around your small kitchen, trying to keep yourself from bursting into Dave’s room. But that wasn’t working. An uncontrollable trembling still wracking your fingers, you pulled out your cell phone and called your best friend, whom you hadn’t talked to in a long time. 

“Ro-lal speaking, is this really Dirk Strider or have I been booty-called?” Roxy greeted you, and at the sound of her voice you relaxed. 

“It’s really me, Roxy. Though maybe I’d like the enjoyment from such a call,” you joked, and something inside your chest twitched like it’d just been woken up. God, you’d missed Roxy. You hadn’t called her in over a year and you felt guilty for that; she was your best friend. She had used to live in the area where you were living now, but something had come up and called her away. Roxy now lived on the other side of the country. A little sheepishly, you realized that it was three hours later for her than it was for you. 

Roxy laughed and it sounded friendly, just like you remembered. “So what’s up, Di-Stri? Long time no chatting!” 

You let yourself smile briefly, so glad that the two of you could fall back into your normal patterns of talking. It was like you’d never been apart. 

Too bad you had to call with such a grim topic to broach… “Roxy,” you started, then paused, something you didn’t do often. You weren’t sure how to bring this up, or if you should bring it up at all. 

As if she could sense something was wrong, Roxy’s tone immediately became more serious. “Dirk? Something wrong?” You could picture her frown now, the way she bit her lip when she got especially upset or nervous. You wondered if she still wore black lipstick. 

“When you needed to see a therapist, who did you go to?” you asked, the words out of your mouth before you could really stop yourself from saying them. 

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long minute and you wondered if you’d gone too far, if you’d screwed everything up again. It was likely; that seemed to happen to you a lot. 

But Roxy finally answered you, talking slowly and with a great amount of hesitation, as if she was afraid to get the words out. “I used to go to the Maryam practice. But, um, they aren’t there now I guess? So there is a new place nearby. One of my friends works there!” Her voice picked up a little in pitch and you smiled, glad that Roxy had found something happy to think about in a sad topic. “It’s actually in the same building, so you can find it, right? Callie is really good, ‘specially with kids.” 

You nodded, listening and remembering the name. You did know where the Maryam practice was, because you had visited Roxy once, years ago, when you were still in high school. You’d walked her to her first appointment there. She had to remember that. “Is she good with kids who’re trying to kill themselves?” you asked, trying to keep the tone conversational, but that fell flat. Shit. 

Roxy laughed, though, and replied, “Well she learned from the Maryams! And you know how I was.” You could hear Roxy’s smile over the phone but suddenly you wanted to see her face, to see if you could still realize that she was faking smiles and laughter to try and cope. 

“I’ll check her out. Thanks, Ro-Lal.” You used her old nickname for good measure, even though a part of you thought it was stupid, because this was the first time you’d talked to your best friend in over a year and you made her remember her past. Stupid you. 

“Call me soon and lemme know how mini-you is doing, okay?” Roxy asked, still a warm tone to her voice. “You were so great when I was dealing with shit so maybe I could return the favor, if you want?” 

Yes, you did want to see Roxy, but you couldn’t ask that of her. She had a life now, was dating some guy who was supposedly a real stand-up sort of guy that Jane had set her up with, and if you wanted to see her, well, too fucking bad. “Nah, we’ll be fine. I’ll keep you posted though. It’ll be like I’m your mailman, except I only deliver Strider news.” 

Roxy laughed again and you smiled again, glad to have made her laugh even though you were awkward as hell. “Okay. Bye, Dirk!” she chirped and you said good-bye and hung up the phone. 

You sat in your chair a moment longer, basking in the warmth of the connections and memories a mere phone call could bring to you before time could catch up with your heart, as it was always wont to do. Standing, you pocketed your cell phone and made your way back to Dave’s room. You knocked on his door, a little calmer now and ready to guardian the shit out of this kid who clearly needed some help. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You didn’t realize that you were running down the street until your heartbeat was the only thing you could hear, thumping in your ear drums. And you didn’t know that you were crying until your gasping sobs were audible over the sound of your sneakered feet slapping against the pavement.

Fuck that “clean out your drawers” shit; you were going to book it instead. Being mindful of the contents of said drawers, you opened the top one al the way and dug around until you found the dime baggie you’d originally started looking for. You pulled it out and hastily stuffed it into your pocket, then threw your hoodie on, grateful that your cigarettes and lighter were still in the big front pocket. Finished with that, you stood there in your room for a second, reflecting that you were alone, and let the anger really hit you. 

Who the hell did Bro think he was, getting all up in your shit like it was any of his goddamn business? Like he even gave a shit, like he was even capable of giving a shit. Your fists clenched in anger and you glanced at the window, thinking on the good thing about one-story houses: there weren’t any ridiculous heights to jump from if you wanted to get out of your room. 

You walked over and pushed the window up, feeling a little dizzy from the exertion. You probably needed to eat or drink something, but good was honestly the furthest thing from your mind as you climbed out the window and pushed it about halfway closed behind you. You were too pissed to give any more fucks. It was like going to the library and asking the librarian for a book on how to give a fuck; you were the dude chilling behind the desk who didn’t look up from his computer when the kid asked because you didn’t give enough fucks to even realize that you were in a goddamn library. 

You didn’t realize that you were running down the street until your heartbeat was the only thing you could hear, thumping in your ear drums. And you didn’t know that you were crying until your gasping sobs were audible over the sound of your sneakered feet slapping against the pavement. 

\- - -

You finally made it to Garrett’s house, your lungs feeling like ragged pieces of flesh just struggling to inflate in your chest when you breathed in. You were even dizzier than before and so you walked up to Garrett’s front door slowly, not even noticing that he’d already had the door open and was leaning against the frame, watching you walk up to him. “’Sup, motherfucker,” he greeted you, acting as if he wasn’t surprised at all to see you. And in reality he probably wasn’t all that surprised; you guys often hung out on the weekends. But when you got closer, you saw Garrett do a double-take and straighten up – god he was really fucking tall. “Really, what all is up, bro? You look like shit just got all kinds of ugly.” 

“We can’t all look like fucking clown princesses,” you retorted lazily, reaching a hand up to push your shades a little further up the bridge of your nose. You didn’t feel up to explaining why you looked like shit. 

Garrett looked you over a second time, then nodded. He was the kind of guy who didn’t ask questions, didn’t pry into others’ business, and didn’t tell secrets that were supposed to be kept a fucking secret, damn it. 

“Wanna go smoke?” you asked casually, fighting back the angry thoughts stemming from the injustice you were feeling at your entire situation, as if the rest of the world was the fucked-up one and not you. “I got it covered this time.” 

Garrett nodded again, reaching behind him and pulling his front door closed before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking down the front walk, leaving you to follow him. “I got the papers today,” he commented. 

You shrugged and acquiesced to that even though you preferred smoking with a pipe (Garrett had this fucking gorgeous indigo pipe that looked impossible to smoke until you actually tried it), because at this point you just really needed to get high and not deal with anything for a while. 

\- - -

The first hit was always the best hit, in your opinion. You gingerly took the blunt from Garrett (how the fuck were you supposed to hold this shit, again? Like a cigarette, right? Yeah, that seemed right) and put one end to your lips while you dug out your lighter. You lit up the other end of the blunt and inhaled slowly, so as to not get any “scooby snacks”, as some other kids called them, down your throat. When you couldn’t breathe in anymore you held it out to Garrett, who took it from you and took a hit. 

You breathed in sharply through your nose, acting as if you were swallowing, before exhaling slowly through your nose. You’d read on the Internet that there were more receptors to thc in your nose and you wanted to see if that was true or bull shit. 

Judging by the fact that your vision started to explode with flowery bursts of colors you couldn’t even name, you would say that that little factoid was true. 

The two of you continued trading the blunt back and forth, engaging in a smoke ring-blowing contest, which you aced at – you’d practiced enough with your actual cigarettes most nights when you sat on the window sill smoking because you couldn’t sleep. Garrett’s smoke rings were just clouds of smoke, not even attempts, and you saw that his mouth shape was totally off. 

“C’mon, dude, like this,” you said, dragging out the word “this” because you liked the way it sounded. You reached out and actually grabbed Garrett’s mouth, moving it so that he could blow out smoke rings. “Make fishy face, but not too fishy, see watch me,” you added, making the motions for the rings with your mouth. 

Garrett seemed to be studying your mouth intently, and you let go of his face to let him take another hit – shit, was the blunt already mostly gone? That would explain why your fingers felt like they were fuzzy inside, like little caterpillar bellies were in your hands – and then he blew perfect smoke rings right into your face, a shit-eating grin on his lips when he finished. 

You coughed, waving away the smoke and grinning anyway, unable to stop yourself. Your face kind of hurt from all the grinning you’d been doing but you couldn’t stop it no matter how hard you thought about it. “Hells of unnecessary to blow that shit all up in my face,” you told Garrett, pretending to be stern but failing because of that grin that was still on your face for some reason. Shit, you were fucking baked. 

Suddenly you couldn’t help but notice everything about where you were: the sunlight filtering weakly through the canopy of leaves above your head that shone onto Garrett’s hair like a halo – ha, stoned Jesus, you thought, prompting a chuckle from Garrett; did you say that out loud? – and was probably lighting up your own hair in the same way. 

The two of you were sitting at the base of a wide-trunked tree in the very heart of a piece of forest at the edge of the high school’s grounds. It was your usual spot with Garrett and normally that would mean that you felt perfectly safe there but for some reason you were paranoid as a rabbit during hunting season. 

“Dude, does anyone else ever come out here?” you asked, trying to be cool about it because it was all kinds of uncool to be paranoid, especially around Garrett who was always cool about everything, but damn it you couldn’t help it. Thoughts about how John had told Bro your secret about the cutting thing were really getting to you and – oh, oh God. What if John told Bro about your smoking like this with Garrett? Oh, God, you would be so screwed. 

You didn’t know that you were shaking and rocking back and forth until you felt Garrett’s solid body around you, his arms wrapped around your shoulders like he was trying to hold you together, like you were someone’s gift box falling apart at its shitty cardboard seams. “Shit, bro, motherfucking calm down, you’re all shaking and shit,” he said, and you shook your head, unable to calm down in any way. You had never had a bad high like this before and you didn’t know what to do or where to turn and – 

And suddenly Garrett was kissing you? Was he really doing that, was that really his lips you felt against yours now? Yes, yes they were, you decided, and without even realizing that you were doing it you were reciprocating, your lips moving against his seamlessly, mouths opening – 

Your hands locked around his neck and then slid down when Garrett kissed a trail down from your mouth to your neck, where he started nipping and biting at your skin, biting down particularly hard on your collar bone which actually, um, oh shit, felt a lot better than you thought it would have, which you were only really aware of because the moan that you heard was definitely yours, God that was embarrassing but it felt so good – 

Next thing you felt was your bare back on the hard-packed and sun-warmed dirt when Garrett gently pushed you down, his body moving over yours as he actually seemed to try and kiss every damn scar, which made you laugh (you weren’t ticklish, god damn it, that was not a thing that you were; just because you laughed when Garrett pressed his mouth to your stomach didn’t mean that you being ticklish was a thing that was going on here) and thread your fingers through his hair as his mouth went lower and your half-choked-back laughs turned into half-choked-back moans – 

You couldn’t think for the unnamable sensations that mingled when Garrett’s hand caressed your ass, his fingers slick and cold and sliding between your ass cheeks and then there was pressure, foreign pressure pressing itself into you, and you resisted the urge to clench your muscles around Garrett’s finger that was now undeniably up your ass. But you couldn’t resist the clenching that happened when there was another finger added, because holy shit you didn’t think that was fucking possible. Garrett shushed you, his free hand brushing against your cheek gently and you leaned into the touch, trying to relax – 

“Oh, God,” you groaned when Garrett, his half-naked body leaning over you and dripping his sweat onto your own sweaty chest, rocked his dick into your ass for the second time so far. You felt like you were going to burst from the ass up and while it was an unpleasant sensation at first, the third time Garrett pushed into you he leant all the way over you and when he leaned down to kiss you as reassurance, your eyes rolled up into your head and you couldn’t help the pathetic noise that bubbled from your lips that was a moan followed by the phrase, “God yes please do it again right there right the fuck th-“ and you broke off into another moan when Garrett was only too happy to comply – 

It felt like that went on forever, Garrett fucking you into the actual ground and you greedily pulling him down and into you until holy shit you couldn’t go any longer with neglecting your own poor dick that bobbed against your stomach how could you have forgotten about that? You reached down and wrapped a hand around yourself, unable to keep up with the stroking as Garrett picked up his pace, fucking you rough and hard and leaning down to mark up your neck, a fact that you couldn’t give any shits about because it felt fucking heavenly and suddenly the stoned Jesus thought made sense – 

Then you’d managed to get yourself cumming when your strokes got in conjunction with Garrett thrusting into you and when he hit that spot that made your eyes roll in your head like you were fucking possessed and Garrett came a minute later, you couldn’t think about time as you were coming down from the high – 

And then, Garrett was helping you get dressed and brushing you off and were brushing the hair from his eyes, wanting to see them, and you laughed when you did because dear God, he looked more stoned than you felt and that was saying something. “Feeling all better?” Garrett asked, looking at you with a knowing sort of grin, and you nodded. 

You felt so good, in fact, that you wanted to spread the good feelings to someone else you happened to like a whole lot. And God, you couldn’t wait to call them up and ask to hang. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) i didn't wanna give anything away sorry for end-of-chapter notes unu  
> 2) i'm a big bag of dicks, i know  
> 3) i smoke but i don't usually do blunts (only done that once) so god i'm really sorry if that bit is inaccurate; i just know about how to breathe and shit because i had trouble with that when i first started so i had to get good if i wanted to get high /shrug  
> 4) the smut thing is legit the most smut i've written like ever that is being published  
> 5) it's written in a kind of strange way (ending with a hypen and skipping random bits) because i've had sex when i was higher than planet fucking jupiter and its kind of like that so i thought i'd try to be accurate  
> 6) please don't kill me for making dave do the thing with humanstuck gamzee /sob


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We ain’t even explored shit and we think we know it, we do it all the time with like, people an’ shit, not just, y’know, space and science and fuck all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) hi i'm still alive!!! ^u^/  
> 2) and i'm sorry that i suck so royally at updating regularly but i mean life happened and i guess i have a life now?? it's weird but w/e not gonna complain too much haha  
> 3) dave is a rambling stoner once he stops being a paranoid lil shit  
> 4) sobs into hands i feel like this is awful but it's been in my notebook for a while so i had to get it up here before i forgot

You had just stood up from your solo dinner when your cell phone went off, the special ring tone that you had assigned to Dave (per his request) playing throughout the house. You hurriedly set your dirty dishes on the counter by the sink and exited the kitchen via the strange saloon-style doors that your father was overly fond of and grabbed your phone from where you’d left it on the couch a few minutes ago. “Hello?” you answered, interrupting the unsettling pattern of synthesized beats emanating from the device. 

“John!” Dave exclaimed, and from the way he said your name you could tell something was off. “John, dude, guess where I am.” 

Well, you could play along for a little while, you supposed. “I don’t know, Dave. Give me a hint.” 

Dave laughed and it sounded strange over the phone. “Starts with ‘out’ and ends with ‘side’,” he said, sing-song like a little kid would sound if they were trying to be teasing. “Guess where outside.” 

Unbelievable. You knew _exactly_

Dave was walking up your front path – a little funnily, you noticed; he had a bit of a limp – with the biggest grin on his face. “John!” he exclaimed, as if he hadn’t seen you in years. “John, man, I am – “ 

“Really, really stoned,” you finished for him, crossing your arms over your chest with your best unamused face. 

Dave cracked up and stopped walking, swaying slightly in place as he pointed at you and laughed. “Your face,” he howled, and you rolled your eyes, still not amused. Who the fuck had let Dave get high and then allowed him to walk to your house? Or walk at all, for that matter? 

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” you said, stepping forward and taking Dave’s arm. When you got close, you noticed dark purple, mottled bruises on Dave’s neck that led a trail from right below his ear to his collar bone and probably even farther down, somewhere where you couldn’t see. You tugged at the collar of your own shirt awkwardly as you turned away and led Dave inside. You knew what those were and you wondered who gave them to him. 

Briefly, you entertained the thought of you being the one to plant those marks on Dave’s skin before pushing it away to the back of your mind. 

\- - -

“Okay, sit down and tell me what happened,” you instructed, waving at Dave to take a seat opposite you on your bed. You’d fed him half a loaf of bed, a jug of apple juice, and let him finish off the near-empty jar of peanut butter in your pantry. The way that Dave ate seemed like he hadn’t eaten in days, but you knew that couldn’t be right; Dave probably got a bad case of the munchies when he got high or something like that. 

Dave was hyperactive now, his mouth running nonsensically at a hundred miles a minute as he examined your room and the stuff in it like he was seeing it for the first time. You were trying to coax the information about what had happened since you had left Dave’s house earlier, but he kept getting distracted. “Sure man whatever you say,” he said, flopping back-first onto your bed. His head was by your side; you always gave Dave the outside when he slept over, preferring the inside and the enclosure it gave you. “Holy shit dude, stars’re all over your fuckin’ ceiling!” he exclaimed, taking off his sunglasses to get a better look at them. 

“They’ve been there for years, Dave,” you reminded him, but there was a far-off look in your best friend’s eyes that said to you that he wasn’t really listening. 

“You ever wonder what those little fuckers are really made of?” And so he wasn’t. But you let Dave go on anyway. “Everyone says they’re all dead an’ shit, have been for years, but that’s not fair to ‘em. Bein’ dead while tryin’ your damnedest to shine is shit tons of not-fun, John, trust me. So I thought, maybe there’s life on ‘em!” Dave propped himself up on his elbows and looked right at you, hope written on his every feature. “It’s hot as fuck but who says there ain’t life on ‘em? Scientists? Sometimes science is total bullshit, man. We ain’t even explored shit and we think we know it, we do it all the time with like, people an’ shit, not just, y’know, space and science and fuck all.” 

You stared at Dave for a few long moments, watching him drift into a space that no one but him was privy to. Part of you wanted to be able to see what Dave was thinking, to be part of the strange machinations of his mind, if only for a moment. You knew that Dave was intelligent when he felt like it but this was the most that you had heard him say on any matter related to things you’d both learned in school. “You should be a teacher someday, Dave,” you replied quietly, smiling a little. Dave would be a weird teacher, but you thought that he could pull it off. “So, um, how about those marks on your neck there?” you asked, trying to make a casual transition and failing at it. Maybe Dave was too high to notice how you were really interested in his answer. 

As you had just hoped, Dave was too far gone to care. He actually laughed, and laughed, and laughed… Normally, you liked the sound of Dave’s laugh but this was a perversion of it, an inversion of all the wrong chords and qualities. Just when you were nearing the point of slapping Dave to make him stop, he caught his breath and went back to just smiling. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he asked, aiming for coy but instead making you hit the peak of frustration mountain. 

“Actually, yes, I would,” you snapped, and Dave sat fully upwards, looking at you in puzzlement, his drug-addled mind not understanding why you were angry with him. “I want to know so that I know who to harass later for getting my best friend high and letting him walk all over town like an idiot. You’re so high that you don’t even – Dave. What are you doing.” Dave had half-lurched over, draping his torso over yours. His head was buried in your neck and you, understandably, froze up. Dave’s hair was soft and feather-light against your skin. He smelled like outside and pot smoke and vaguely of freshly-cut apples, which was probably his shampoo or something. “Seriously, Dave – “ 

Dave turned his head so that his face was turned inwards, the hard curves of his nose pressing into the side of your neck while his cheekbones pressed into your shoulder. His lips, chronically dry, moved minutely against the skin of your neck, making your breath quicken and your whole body stiffen at the strange, but not unpleasant, sensation. “Apologizin’,” he murmured, “you’re upset, lemme fix it, fix you.” Dave pressed himself even more into you, draping a leg across both of yours. His arms came up and wrapped around your neck, pulling you impossibly closer to him. 

“Dave,” you said, your voice barely audible to you over the sound of your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. His breath was flowing against your neck and it made you shiver despite the fact that it was warm. It felt good, really good, but Dave was higher than the Statue of Liberty and you were not and therefore this was totally not okay not to mention that you weren’t even interested in guys (right?) and damn it you kind of wished that Dave wasn’t high so that this could be okay. “Dave!” you exclaimed, weakly trying to shove him off of you. “Let’s sleep or something…” 

Dave lolled his head around and looked up at you, his red eyes blinking owlishly. “But are ya better? ‘Cause, John, I really wanna make you happy ‘n’ shit, ‘cause you make me happy, even if ya did tell Bro on me, and if you ain’t happy then I ain’t happy and John, I wanna make ya happy…” 

You shushed Dave, not wanting him to notice that you were blushing from your collar bone to the tips of your ears. “Yes, Dave, I’m happy,” you told him, mostly to shut him up. “But we should sleep. Okay?” You looked steadily back at Dave until he blinked and nodded, acquiescing to the idea of sleep. You sat up fully and Dave rolled over a little, moving off of you. He grabbed clumsily at your blanket and pulled it over himself, gesturing at you to join him. You smiled at Dave again and joined him under your comforter. He returned the smile and you watched his face grow relaxed as he grew more comfortable in your presence, snuggling up next to you like a cat seeking out heat. 

“Thanks for takin’ care of me, John,” he told you, nuzzling his head into your shoulder lightly. “You’re the best.” 

You smiled a little wider and ran a hand through Dave’s hair, pulling him just that tiny bit closer. “Anything for you, Dave,” you replied, and you meant it, but Dave was already asleep. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Except that thinking about blue eyes sent you into a John-related thought or dream or memory, you weren’t sure which, but suddenly you could see yourself on John’s bed, half-draped over him and John’s skin was soft and he smelled really good, like vanilla cake and aftershave and wow you were really fucking hoping you hadn’t kissed him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) haha long time no update on this story huh u~u  
> 2) i actually did get a random burst of inspiration for this so next chapter is already like halfway written yay!  
> 3) vic = vriska, in case that wasn't clear  
> 4) hopefully you'll hear from me again soon~

If you could remember what happened between waking up at John’s house on Sunday morning and arriving to school on Monday morning, you would more than obliged to detail the events. 

As it stands, though, all you remember was leaving a note for John when you left early Sunday morning: 

_john,_

youre a great bro for not kickin my ass out whenever it was that i showed up. i dont remember much but hopefully were still friends. if were not you should tell rose or jade so they can tell me and if i seriously fucked up then im sorry. see you at school. 

dave 

So really, all you can remember from being at John’s is that note. And even then it’s a struggle to get hold of the memory. 

Oh, and you sort of remembered your eventual arrival back home. You’d ended up going in through the front door because Bro had more than likely noticed that you weren’t home. And you only knew that because when you walked into the house, Bro was sitting still as a statue on the couch, staring at the T.V., and that was weird because Bro rarely sat still long enough to watch any shows. 

And you knew that he saw you but when you came in and muttered, “Home,” he didn’t even look up. You just shrugged and went to your room, too tired to give even half a fuck at that point, and from that point on you were sure that you slept until now. 

“Now” just happened to be you walking to your first period gym class with almost no recollection of how you’d gotten there. 

You abruptly stopped walking when this realization finally hit you. Holy shit though, how could you not fucking remember? Had you talked to any of your friends this weekend, besides John? God damn it, if you’d fucked up something when you weren’t even conscious – 

Your train of thought cut off as the ground tilted at a strange angle below you. You blinked, trying to clear your vision, which had suddenly become blurry. You wondered, briefly, if you’d eaten over the weekend, before your vision went black. 

\- - -

“God, are you ever going to wake up? Talk about lame,” some girl said, her voice and the way she dragged out the last word being the sounds to pull you out of whatever unconscious void you’d been swimming in. 

You felt your mouth turn down in a frown more than you were cognizant of actually performing the task. “What,” you replied, dumbly, trying to recognize your surroundings. You were definitely horizontal, so you could still be in the hall. No one really took the back route to gym class, especially not your first period class. 

“Wow, he’s finally awake, what an improvement from before!” the girl answered you, sarcasm playing a heavy role in her voice as she added, “Stop being so chatty, by the way, you’re totally wrecking my focus here.” 

“Where’m I?” you half-slurred. For some reason your tongue wasn’t cooperating with the rest of your mouth. It felt heavy and alien in your mouth and damn it this was gonna be frustrating if it didn’t shape up soon. “Floor or nurse?” The nurse was your only other guess, because you were fucking freezing and the nurse always kept her office as cold as the arctic. 

You finally opened your eyes and propped yourself up on your elbows, slowly, not wanting to have another accident. Thank fucking God, your shades were still on. You turned your head and finally saw the girl who’d been so welcoming; she was resting on the cot next to yours. Well, at least you knew you were in the nurse’s office now. She wasn’t bad-looking even if she was really fucking thin: blond hair and blue eyes was usually a good combination on girls. 

(Except that thinking about blue eyes sent you into a John-related thought or dream or memory, you weren’t sure which, but suddenly you could see yourself on John’s bed, half-draped over him and John’s skin was soft and he smelled really good, like vanilla cake and aftershave and wow you were really fucking hoping you hadn’t kissed him.) 

The girl rolled her eyes and clapped sarcastically. “Oh, great, you’re the smartest, it’s you. Of course you’re still on the floor. That’s why you’re on a cot.” 

It was about now that you noticed how actually fucking thin this chick was. Her skin was drawn tight over all of her everything, really; her cheekbones were harsh and so was her chin, jutting out like it was, and her collar bones looked like little bones from chicken wings and even her hands were thin: there were gaps between her fingers. “You look like shit,” you said, not caring about tact. She was gonna be rude to you, well, you could dish that right back. 

She just looked at you a minute, straight-faced, then grinned and nodded. “So do you. I’m Vic. You’re Dave.” 

Now it was your turn to pause for a minute. “Yeah, how the hell do you know that?” 

Vic laughed and shrugged. “One of your friends ID’d you. Kinda short, dark hair, really cute, ring a bell?” 

“John,” you said, then added before you could help yourself, “He’s off-limits.” 

Vic raised an eyebrow. “Is he yours? I mean, that would explain why he was trying so damn hard not to cry. He failed, but you know, it’s the effort that counts for little dweebs like him.” 

You let that sink in a moment. You’d made John fucking cry over your stupid piece of ass; way to go, douche. “He’s as good as,” you said after a moment, after you were mostly done mentally berating yourself. God, you were so fucking selfish. How could you face John again? 

But Vic nodded understandingly, her grin softening into something that was almost a kind smile. “I’ve got one of those, too. I get it.” There was a moment of silence between the both of you, then Vic asked, “Wanna know what they’re going to do with you after your guardian picks you up? I heard the whole conversation.” 

“Sure,” you agreed. Nothing could happen to you that you wouldn’t deserve at this point, really. And even though you didn’t really feel good about accepting any sort of tips or help from Vic, you didn’t really have a choice, if you wanted to know. 

With a glance at the closed door to the nurse’s private office, Vic said quickly and in a hushed tone, “I heard her talking with your guardian about different hospitals to put you in. She thought you were almost dead when John brought you in so she totally freaked out. But really, I don’t think you need a hospital. You could stand to be more screwed up, especially physically, if you catch my drift.” 

You, understandably, took about five minutes to take that information in. And by “take that information in”, we mean that you were freaking out and thinking at about ten miles a minutes about everything that Vic had just said – especially the part where she said you could be worse off physically. That much was true; you didn’t really eat but you were still pretty fucking huge. Not to mention that at this point, you didn’t deserve to get a bite to eat anyway; you were such a fuck-up. 

Eventually you just nodded, muttering what you hoped was a thanks for the info sort of thing, but you really weren’t sure what you said. You were more preoccupied with planning an escape of some kind. If Bro stopped at home with you before taking you to a hospital then you could probably get out via the window or something… 

“So now that I’ve helped you out, I need a favor,” Vic said, cutting across your frenzied train of thought. “I mean, it’d only be fair, right? So, listen up.” You looked right at Vic and tried to calm the fuck down enough to listen to her talk. You didn’t really want to owe her anything and it was better if you just took care of this now; then you could go back to freaking out. 

Vic continued. “So my friend, the one I mentioned before, is going to be here soon. When I say goodbye to you, I want you to wink at me and say something flirty, because it’ll totally piss her off. Okay?” There was a gleam in Vic’s eyes that anyone else would have called sheer mania, but you knew that look; hell, you’d been there before. And you’d call the look desperation. 

Just as you nodded your assent, another girl walked in. You looked her over, trying to see if you knew her, and then determined that you didn’t; you’d remember someone with hair as red as hers was. 

“Vic, how many times have you been in the nurse’s office this month?” she asked as greeting, stopping by the side of Vic’s cot. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she looked down her nose at the blond, over the rim of her glasses. 

Vic just rolled her eyes and grinned. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before, Pyrope. Look at the idiot girl, landing herself in trouble again. Snooze! Can we just skip the banter and go straight to the part where you sign me out of here?” 

The redhead sighed and you saw some of her anger towards Vic drain out of her face. “Fine, but we’re going to have a talk, and justice will be dealt.” 

You watched Vic get up with some difficulty, then cleared your throat to get both girls’ attention. You smirked and lowered your shades so that they rested on the bridge of your nose, then winked at Vic. “See ya later, babe, call me anytime and I’ll be free for you.” 

Vic’s friend frowned deeply at you and looked like she was about to say something, but Vic cut across her with a quick, “Will do.” But that was all she really got to say before her friend nearly pulled her out of the office. 

You hoped that that would help Vic somehow. You didn’t really like how she acted but maybe some acts of good would help to clear up all the shit you’d made John go through for you. 

Shit, you thought, leaning back and lying down on the cot again. You closed your eyes, a deep-set tiredness rushing over you as you realized all the crap you’d done. You’d gotten high after all John did was talk to Bro to try and get you help, then you and Garrett fucked (okay actually that thought made your insides crawl and for more than one reason, so you weren’t going to think about that), then you went to John’s house high as a fucking rocket and if your slowly resurfacing memories were correct, you might have attempted to kiss John. Or make out with him; you weren’t really picky when you were stoned. 

But damn it… you’d really fucked up. 

“Dave Strider?” you heard the nurse ask, and you sat up in your cot again. The world sort of fuzzed around the edges when you did that, but you probably just needed to eat or drink something. 

“Good, you’re awake,” she continued, walking out of her little office and over to the fridge. You watched her pull out a jug of apple juice and pour too much into a small paper cup. She came back over to you and held it out to you. “You need to drink this or I can’t let you go home.” 

You just looked at her blankly from behind the safety of your shades, wondering if this woman even understood that you couldn’t drink that. You just couldn’t, man; it was apple juice and you couldn’t let yourself have it because that privilege was too good for you. 

“Mr. Strider. Drink the juice.” The nurse frowned and shook the cup slightly at you, as if she was considering sloshing it on you. (She probably was; you were being stupidly petulant and unresponsive.) 

“When’s Bro getting here?” you asked instead, not looking away from the nurse as you took the paper cup and drained its contents in one quick gulp. It kind of burned your throat but you didn’t really mind; it was apple juice and damn if it didn’t taste fucking delicious. 

“Now,” you heard him answer from the doorway. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave seemed to think himself quite the little king of the avoidance game, but you were the queen of avoiding his avoidance. That made it a checkmate and you were going to win this game. You were quite good at games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) hi hello friends i missed you how are you!! uvu  
> 2) i have chapter thirteen written and like two sentences of chapter fourteen done but i think we are coming near the end of this lovely story!  
> 3) it's probably going to have 16 chapters, maybe 17 if i feel like an epilogue  
> 4) i'll do my best to update regularly now because it's summer but writing comes and goes sometimes man! u~u  
> 5) ps this is my first time writing callie - the chapter's in her perspective, hint hint - so let me know if i did okay, please??  
> 6) i love you all and i hope you have a good day you beautiful creatures UwU xxx

In your office you sat at your desk, neatly writing down reminders – well, it was more of a to-do list, to be honest. Really, you needed to get your head screwed on straight! You had almost created an unfortunate accident and scheduled more than one patient at the same time, which would be now, and that would have been dreadful to try and reconcile. You tutted quietly at yourself, erasing the mistaken appointment and writing in the correct one instead. 

You glanced up from your yellow legal pad and caught sight of the time on the small wall clock hanging just above your neatly-organized desk. Oh, goodness, the time! Your next patient should be waiting in the small waiting area just outside right now! You picked up your in-office phone and dialed the front desk. “Are the Striders in the office, love?” you asked your secretary, who replied in the affirmative. “Brilliant! Please send Dave in, and have the elder Strider fill out the necessary forms.” You hung up and turned back to your desk, scanning for anything out of place. Oh, there were the usual: your post-it note reminders hung up on the wall, some of them having to be stuck with tape because the adhesive to their backs had worn off long ago. But currently, your work area was strangely neat. Perhaps your secretary had tided it for you? Ah, well. It was nice to have it neat instead of as disorderly as it usually was, so you weren’t going to complain! 

There was a knock at the door and you stood, pushing your chair in, then turned and opened the door, welcoming the boy that you assumed to be David Strider into your office with a cheerful, “Hello, Dave!” 

The boy nodded at you and sat down in an overstuffed brown chair that sat just beside the bookcase and near the open window, a seat that you had found to be the favorite spot amongst your more reclusive clients. You sat down at your desk chair yourself and in the span of a few real-time moments, took a few mental notes on Dave Strider, based solely on his appearance. 

For one, he certainly wasn’t eating well, which had been a concern expressed by his guardian. Dave looked too thin and small in his baggy clothes, but you could tell from the way he was fidgeting that he was uncomfortable in his clothes and, potentially, in his own skin. 

For another thing, the major concern that had been expressed by Dave’s guardian was his self-harm and his copious amounts of cuts, not all of which were old enough to stop the concern that the man had expressed to you over the phone. Currently, you did not see any actual marks or scars of any sort, but Dave’s posture – namely, the way that his shoulders were curved inwards, as if he needed to protect himself – told you that he was certainly a candidate for self-harm. 

Perhaps if you talked to him, instead of making strange little notes in your head like some sort of loony, you would get more answers. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” you continued, because in real-time only a moment had passed, “My name is Callie Umbra, and you can call me Miss Umbra or you can call me Callie, whichever you prefer.” You smiled brightly. “How are you?” 

Dave just looked at you. Well, you presumed that he was looking at you, because his face and his sunglasses were pointed in your direction, but his sunglasses were so dark that you couldn’t exactly see where he was looking. You briefly wondered if that was a defense mechanism for the boy, if he preferred people not knowing where he was looking. 

“Do I have to pass this to stay out of the hospital? Because I think this is all bullshit,” Dave replied. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. 

“If you would like to look at this meeting as a test, then that would be fine with me. However, I wonder why you want to treat this as a test. Does that mean that you think you’ll fail?” You paused, smiling, and let that question sink in for a moment before continuing. “But I asked how you are, Dave. Why don’t you tell me about that?” Dave seemed to think himself quite the little king of the avoidance game, but you were the queen of avoiding his avoidance. That made it a checkmate and you were going to win this game. You were quite good at games. 

Dave stared at you for another minute, then snapped, “I got my ass dragged here by my Bro against my will, so you tell me how the fuck you think I feel.” 

You nodded, listening to Dave’s small outburst. Anger was better than indifference. “You sound angry, but I think you might be hurt. You trusted your brother and he betrayed that trust by taking you to me. I’m sorry you feel that way, Dave. Why don’t you tell me a little more about that?” 

Dave shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and muttered, “Nothin’ to tell ‘cept that it’s my fault I’m here anyway.” 

“Why do you say that?” 

Dave sighed a tired sort of sigh and you wanted to provide him with a soft bed and a pillow. “Just ‘cause.” 

“Okay.” You recognized that Dave wasn’t ready to talk openly about whatever was brewing inside him yet. You decided not to push it and instead changed the subject. “Tell me about your brother. Is he your only guardian?” 

“Yeah.” Dave nodded. “He’s good. Works from home. We’re kinda loaded, so he don’t need to, but he does.” 

“Oh? I wasn’t aware of that. What does he do for a living?” 

“Runs a load of websites. You probably wouldn’t know about ‘em.” 

“You don’t know that for sure! Try me.” 

Dave smirked. “Puppet porn one of your tastes?” 

\- - -

You were so worried about Dave that you couldn’t think straight. You’d locked yourself in your room and were now pacing the length of it. Dad had come up to try and get you to come down for dinner, but that wasn’t going to happen. Like you said, you were too worried. 

Your phone rang on your bed, Dave’s ring tone, and you dashed over to your bed from the door, picking it up. “Hello?” you asked, your heart thundering in your chest. What if this wasn’t Dave calling you, but his brother, or the hospital, calling to say that Dave was hurt or – or worse? 

“Hey, John,” Dave said from the other end of the line and God, he sounded awful, almost like he’d been crying. 

“Dude! Oh, thank God it’s you!” You let out a breath you hadn’t known you’d been holding and felt your heart slow down to a normal pace in your chest. “How are you doing? Did they take you to the hospital?” 

“Fine and no, thank fuckin’ Christ,” Dave answered. He sounded so tired, but you were glad that he’d called you. You hoped that he was the first person he decided to call. 

“Okay. Well, do you have to go to a hospital? You looked – “ you swallowed noisily, trying not to remember how pale Dave had looked this morning, so much like he was dead – “you looked like shit this morning, ha.” Of course, if Dave did go to a hospital they weren’t going to release him for a long time. On top of his numerous self-harm scars and stuff, he was really thin, kind of like a skeleton when he was asleep, and he was light enough for you to have carried him from the hall to the nurse’s office… You’d been doing some research online and found out that Dave probably had anorexia. You’d heard about it in health class, of course, but you’d only ever been taught that it affected girls who thought they were fat. Dave wasn’t a girl, and he’d never been fat. It confused you a lot, but you were willing to help Dave through it if he needed help. 

“Nope,” Dave said. “I met with some psychiatrist kind of chick and she said I passed the test.” 

“Really? What was she like?” 

“Kinda young. She wasn’t dumb or anything, though. She wants to see me again.” 

“Do you want to go again?” 

There was a short pause on Dave’s end. “No,” he finally said. Then there was another, longer pause. “John?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I… I wanted to say that… I…” 

Dave was never hesitant and this, how he sounded right now, was making too many different scenarios go through your head. Was Dave going to commit suicide? Was he tired and not in his right mind? Was he… Was he going to say what you’d been nearly dreaming that he would say for a while now? “What do you want to say?” you asked him quietly, afraid to so much as breathe into the phone. 

“I… wanted to thank you,” Dave finally said, but his words came out rushed and they sounded funny in your ears and over the phone and you felt your heart hurting in your chest. 

“Yeah, no problem. I just want you to be healthy,” you said, your lips feeling kind of numb. “You look really sick.” 

“I know.” Dave paused again. “I don’t think I’ll be back at school for a while. Callie said – “ 

“Callie?” 

“My therapist, I guess. Anyway, she said she wanted me to take some time offa school. Rest up an’ shit like that. I think it’s bull ‘cause I wanna see you on the daily like we usually do but Callie said I have to take time off,” Dave said, all in a rush, like he couldn’t wait to get the words out. 

You, meanwhile, were hung up on how he said that he wanted to see you. Not Jade, not Rose, not even Garrett – just you. You, you, you. God, were you hopeless or what? 

“I hope that works for you. I’ll miss you too, Dave,” you said, because you knew that that was what he had been trying to tell you. 

“Don’t miss me, visit me.” 

You laughed. “Yeah, I will.” 

“For real?” 

You had to smile at the earnest tone to Dave’s tired-sounding voice. He really wanted to see you, huh. “For real. Of course.” 

“Good. Gotta go to bed, see you.” 

“Bye, Dave.” You hung up the phone after Dave did and held the device in your hands for a few moments, wishing that you were holding Dave’s hand in yours instead. 

That goodbye had felt too final for you. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It felt like you had exhausted every corner of the Internet – Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit – hell, you’d even tried 4chan before learning your lesson about that shit. But you were still so. Fucking. Bored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) i have risen from the grave to deliver an update on this story uwu  
> 2) i have chapter 14 done as well but i'm going to try to work on chapter 15 before posting it so that i don't make you guys wait forever for me to update  
> 3) speaking of updates AH HOMESTUCK AH NOOOOOOO  
> 4) *clears throat*  
> 4a) that is all i hope you enjoy my stories because i enjoy knowing that you are reading them UvU/ <3

***Two weeks later***

You were sick to fucking death of staying at home. It was just so goddamn boring here. The first few days had been really great: it was a relief to not have to wake up at six in the morning to get ready to go to a place that you hated. You’d even been able to sleep, which struck you as odd and worried Bro. He woke you up every two hours to have you drink a weird shake that tasted like sawdust and chocolate and you didn’t know what the hell was in it but more often than not you were too tired to care. 

After those first few days, though, you’d caught up on your sleep and now found it near-impossible to shut your eyes. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to indulge in any of your habits: at some point, Bro had gone through your room and removed your cigarettes, your lighters, any drugs you’d had, and everything that could be used as a means of hurting yourself. It really pissed you off that he’d gone through your shit like that, but you knew that the other option was to go to the hospital. Bro had laid down the law pretty damn clear the first day that you’d stayed home. 

“No cuttin’, burnin’, or otherwise hurtin’ yourself or you’re gone. No skippin’ meals or you’re gone. No smokin’ – cigarettes or otherwise – or you’re gone.” Bro had told you, crossing his arms over his chest until, after an awkwardly silent five minutes, you’d sullenly agreed. 

When you agreed, though, Bro’s stern exterior sort of crumpled and he pulled your close, hugging you so tightly that it felt like if you inhaled, you wouldn’t be getting any air. “I’m here if you need me, Dave,” he’d said quietly before letting you go with a solid pat on the back. The whole exchange had made you realize that your world view might be a little bit fucked up, because it was pretty obvious that Bro cared about you and wasn’t out to get you or anything. 

But now, you were just bored as shit. It felt like you had exhausted every corner of the Internet – Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit – hell, you’d even tried 4chan before learning your lesson about that shit. But you were still so. Fucking. Bored. And eating so much more than you used to, which made Bro and Callie happy, but you didn’t care that much about it. You only did it because otherwise you’d have to go to the hospital. As soon as they stopped caring so much, you were going to stop it again. Why stuff your face when you didn’t really deserve to in the first place, right? 

They all thought that you were getting better of your own volition, that you were happier and healthier. But in reality, you were still pretty fucking miserable. 

“Dave! Come on, appointment today!” Bro yelled from the other room. 

You sat up in bed where you’d been lying down, staring at the ceiling and contemplating your fucking existence, your mind slowly catching up with the rest of you. Mechanically, you stood from your bed and dressed in the usual: jeans and a hoodie, the better to hide your ugly scars. That hadn’t come up in your weekly sessions with Callie and you never wanted it to. 

\- - -

“Good afternoon, Dave! How are you doing today?” Callie greeted you cheerfully as you stepped into her small but bright office. She closed the door behind you and you made a beeline for the chair you’d deemed yours – the one by the bookshelf, with the squishy seat and the padded armrests. 

“Fine,” you answered, your default response at this point. You didn’t really have any emotions to feel. “You?” 

“I’m doing well, Dave.” Callie smiled and leaned back slightly in her chair, getting comfortable. “How has homebound suited you? Do you enjoy not having to attend school?” 

You shrugged. “It’s okay.” 

“Really? Tell me some more about it. I know that your brother’s taken time off of his – er, work. How’s that been for you?” 

You resisted the urge to sigh. Callie was doing her job, most of which involved being nice. You really needed to stop being so fucking ungrateful, but you couldn’t help your reactions – you just didn’t want to talk about yourself or your life at all, with the hopes that maybe everything would just go away if you ignored it. Also, if you talked about how homebound had been, that would lead to you talking about John, because the little shit had only visited you once and that bothered you. You’d probably done something to offend him or scare him off; you seemed to be aces at fucking shit up. “Okay,” you finally said. “Boring.” 

“I thought that you would enjoy the break. Was it not as relaxing as you’d hoped it would be?” 

You shrugged again. “Not really. Can’t sleep still. My friends came by a couple times.” 

Callie raised an eyebrow at you, one of her favorite expressions to make, and asked, “Really now? Who came to visit?” 

“John came once. Rose came three or four times and Jade’s been over almost every day.” You really hoped that Callie hadn’t noticed how hard it had been for you to say John’s name; it was like trying to talk with sand in your throat. 

“That’s wonderful! Tell me about your friends, Dave, you haven’t mentioned them much before.” 

“Rose is like my sister, really snarky and she keeps up with me. Jade’s pretty cute and she’s fun to be around.” You left it at that. You really didn’t want to talk about John. 

Callie smiled, pleased with this information. “So you clearly value the friendships of your girl friends. Why don’t you tell me about John, Dave? I noticed that you left him out.” 

God fucking damn it. “John and I are really tight. We hang out a lot and he’s dorky as shit but I like being around him, he’s – “ you cut yourself off there, unable to keep saying words without hurting your throat, which felt like it’d just locked itself up and made you swallow the key. You blinked your eyes rapidly behind your shades, willing yourself not to break down. Not here, not now, not fucking ever. 

Seeming to sense your imminent breakdown, Callie handed you a box of tissues from her desk, which you took and placed in your lap. You focused on the box when she spoke to you, not wanting to look at her face. “Dave,” she started, softly, “how close are you with John? Forgive me if I’m wildly off the mark, but you talk about John as if you value him as something more than a friend.” 

You didn’t answer Callie right away, physically unable to with your throat still blocked up, but your eyes were leaking the words you couldn’t say. You pulled a tissue from the box and hastily wiped away your tears before they could drip down your face and you sniffled pathetically. “No, I’m – no, I can’t.” 

“Why can’t you, Dave?” 

You shook your head, unable to put into words the thoughts stampeding through your mind. If only you could slow time down, or reverse it and never say a single word about John, or skip past this moment and into the next, then maybe things would be fine. “I just – I can’t, all right? Nothin’ against you, Callie, but shit’s kinda hard to deal with when you know you’re straighter than a ruler and somehow you wanna hold hands with your best friend. It’s fuckin’ dumb.” 

Callie paused and you finally looked up from the tissue box in time to see her looking at you with such a fierce fondness that you almost sat back in your chair. “Your feelings aren’t dumb, Dave. Nothing about you is dumb. You can feel however you like about anyone that you like and that is perfectly okay.” 

You took a moment to gather Callie’s words and place them into your own thoughts, hearing her message through all the clutter in your mind. You tucked those words into a safe place in the back of your head and you managed a smile at Callie. She really just wanted to help you. “Okay.” 

With a smile, Callie nodded. “That’s the spirit!” Leaning back again in her chair, Callie added, “Have you thought about asking John how he feels about you? It seems a simple idea and at the same time hard to pull off, but at this point it’s your best option. What do you think?” 

You thought about that. You thought that John was straight, but the way that he’d taken care of you when you stumbled to his house high out of your mind, when anyone else would have turned you away or into the police, was surfacing to your mind. And he had cried when he’d brought you into the nurse’s office two weeks ago, because you were so sick that you’d passed out. And he had visited, even if it was only once… “I could try that,” you said, nodding. 

“Brilliant! If it doesn’t go how you want it to, give me a ring and I’ll come get you myself so that we can chat about it. All right?” 

You nodded again, thinking that this could actually turn out well, as it would kill two birds with one stone: find out once and for all how John felt about you, and get you out of the house again. You were pretty damn sick of being stuck at home. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were some things that you couldn’t deal with, and seeing your Dave – shit, you meant your best friend – looking like a corpse was one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) i don't even have an excuse for not updating in forever i am so sorry  
> b) like i mentioned previously this story is coming to an end!! there will be 16 or 17 chapters, depending on if i write an epilogue u~u  
> c) sdjkvsgdvahs i feel like my writing is crap so i'm really sorry if this is bad D:

You couldn’t help yourself when you walked into the cafeteria and looked around for Dave. You knew that he wasn’t in school; you hadn’t seen him at school in… what, two, maybe three weeks now? But you still hoped that one day he would show up and surprise you. 

Sitting down at your lunch table with a sigh, you scanned the faces at the table, seeing some newer ones. There was Jade and Rose, as usual, but Kyle was also sitting with you, along with one of his weird friends, Reesa, and… Garrett. You frowned down at the table top. You didn’t like that he was here, but since you’d somehow made friends with Kyle, Garrett had been showing up more and more often when you saw Kyle. 

“Kyle, your hair smells so good!” Reesa exclaimed out of the blue, leaning in extra-close to the ginger to sniff his hair, a wide grin on her face. “You smell like strawberries, my second-favorite smell!” Reesa leaned back and laughed, still grinning at Kyle as she twirled a piece of her own carrot-red hair around her fingers. 

“Oh my God, fuck off for once about my hair, Reesa. Where’s your partner-in-crime, can’t you smell her fake blond hair?” Kyle snapped, glancing up at Reesa. 

She frowned. “Leave Vic out of this. She’s just out sick again,” Reesa answered, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away from Kyle. 

“Who’s Vic?” you asked. You didn’t really care either way, but you figured that maybe if you immersed yourself in the meaningless lunchtime gossip that you could Dave off of your mind. 

It was a stupid thought on your part, because Dave was always on your mind. 

“John,” Rose said, when neither Reesa nor Kyle answered you, and you turned to look at your friend. “Have you visited Dave recently, or heard from him at all?” she continued, a slight frown on her lipsticked mouth. 

You paused, then shook your head with some amount of guilt broiling in your stomach. You’d only visited Dave once. You had wanted to visit him again, but the sight of Dave looking so sick made your chest physically ache. There were some things that you couldn’t deal with, and seeing your Dave – shit, you meant your best friend – looking like a corpse was one of them. Of course, Dave had played it off expertly. He’d kicked your distracted ass at video games and acted just like his usual self, before things had gotten weird and all of this shit had started. 

But when his bro had come in to give Dave some weird-looking drink and Dave had refused to drink it while you were over, you were abruptly reminded that Dave wasn’t healthy at all. That he was seriously sick, in more than just a physical way. 

It made you feel like the world’s shittiest friend to admit to this, but you hadn’t been able to deal with that. That’s why you hadn’t gone back to visit Dave. And every day you kicked yourself in the ass for not visiting Dave again. You missed him. 

“John!” Jade snapped, and you started, looking over at her. “Did you hear me?” Her eyes were narrowed behind her round glasses and you cringed a little. 

“Um, no,” you admitted. “What did you say?” 

Jade sighed, frowning at you. “I _said,_ I went and visited Dave after his appointment with Callie yesterday. He’s coming back to school soon!” 

“Really?” you asked. And you couldn’t help yourself; you grinned so widely you thought your face was going to crack. “So he’s better now, right?” 

Jade and Rose exchanged a glance. “Not quite,” Rose answered, “but it’s a start. Dave told me that he was going to start taking medication to adjust his mood soon. Haven’t you talked to him at all, John? Even on pesterchum?” Now Rose was frowning at you and you squirmed in your seat. 

“No,” you said again, then frowned. You paused, then blurted out, “He hasn’t tried to talk to me, so I thought he didn’t want to hear from me.” 

“That isn’t – “ Rose began, but Jade interrupted her. 

“You’ve got to be _kidding_ me!” she all but shouted, startling the whole table into silence, effectively ending whatever side conversations Kyle and Reesa had been having. “I didn’t know that you were such a, a, well, a dipshit, John! All Dave wants to do is talk to you! He _misses_ you! Can you stop acting like a child and talk to your best friend already?” Jade finished raging and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose that made her nostrils flare. 

Everyone at the table was astonished into silence by Jade’s outburst, even Kyle, who looked like he’d just witnessed the second coming of Christ. 

“I’m sorry, John,” Jade apologized after a moment, when you were still trying to catch your breath from being yelled at like that. “But when I visit Dave, all he does is talk about you and it’s frustrating to know that both of you are being so fucking dumb about this whole situation when there’s no need to!” 

You nodded slowly, trying to understand where Jade was coming from. You really didn’t want her to burst out with another rant right away; the first one had been scary enough, coming from her of all people. “Okay, Jade, I get it. I’ll talk to Dave after school, okay?” 

The bell rang, dismissing lunch, and you stood, putting your untouched lunch back into your bag. You weren’t sure if you were actually going to talk to Dave after school, but it was better to placate Jade and then figure out an answer then try for the other way around. 

Kyle sidled up to you after Reesa and Garrett had left, when Rose and Jade were walking in the hall ahead of the two of you. You glanced at Kyle, wondering what he wanted, when the ginger suddenly said in an undertone, “Angry Jade is so fucking attractive, I almost kissed her right on her goddamn mouth.” 

You blinked. Why the hell was he telling you this? “Lay off my friends, dude,” you replied easily. You shifted slightly, not wanting to show that you were uncomfortable with the idea of Jade dating Kyle or vice-versa. 

Kyle snorted. “Yeah, because your friends did that so well.” 

You turned your neck around so quickly that you could hear it crack. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

The ginger shrugged, playing dumb before letting loose as you both turned the corner. “Oh, nothing, it’s not like your douchebag of a best friend got fucked into the ground – the actual ground, apparently – by my own fucktard of a best friend.” 

Just like that, you were seeing red. You knew what Kyle was getting at and the hickeys on Dave’s neck from that Saturday that seemed so long ago suddenly made sense. “You’re lying,” you accused Kyle, but your voice wavered. 

“Yeah, I fucking wish,” he muttered. 

You walked the rest of the way in silence with Kyle to your next class. 


End file.
